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AS IT 

HAPPENED 

Being a Story in Three Books 
and Several Manners 


/ 

BY JOSEPHINE WINFIELD BRAKE 

“ O, love is like the rose, 

And a month it may not see 
Ere it withers where it grows.” 

Bailey’s Fesim . 


Washington : From the Publishing House of 

THE NEALE COMPANY 

431 Eleventh Street. MDCCCXCIX. 




'B735'^ 

46600 

Copyright, 1899, by 

THE NEALE COMPANY* 

All rights reserved. 


TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 



SECOND COPY, , , t ) 


AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO 


]6&itb Ibarlan 

AND TO ONE’ OTHER WHO WILL READ 
BETWEEN THE LINES. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Book Witst. 

THE MAN WHO DESIRED, 


CHAPTER I. 

Selene had moments of illumination. One 
fell upon her as she stood poised in the center 
of the picture. It was a living picture. True, 
living pictures were old, but nothing else drew 
quite so well in the town of Barcelona, which 
had not got over beginning to call and feel 
itself a city upon the strength of the census 
ordered by the town itself. That had shown 
something like forty thousand people. Natu- 
rally, the inhabitants of Bar^^elona were no 
longer content to reckon themselves among 
the hourgeoise. Civic pride, not to mention 
piety, demanded of them churches metropolitan 
in their elegance. But aspiring communities, 
like aspiring individuals, have a trick of find- 
ing themselves lacking the wherewithal to 
make real their fine and well-laid plans. 

The women in St. Ignatius stood stanchly 
behind the vestrymen in their plan of turning 


6 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


the parish and the parish church upside down 
and inside out. The church itself was a mas- 
sive istone building, something squat, some- 
thing square, with only one bell and the merest 
hgment of stained glass. The devout men and 
devouter women set their hearts upon a new 
bell tower, a springing companile to rise above 
the vestry, and ding abroad the notes of bells 
in chime. They planned, too, a new altar, win- 
dows all the length of the church more gor- 
geous than Sheba’s gems, a roof of Gothic fret- 
tings, and pewis in themselves provocative of 
devotion. The struggle to secure all these 
things was so keen and sharp a good few 
among the very elect of the sanctuary forgot 
or overlooked that there were such things as 
aching hearts or hungry bodies in this well- 
churched world. 

To say the women of St. Ignatius meant, of 
course, Mrs. Witherby. She led in everything, 
the rest simply obeying her edicts. If now and 
then a malcontent appeared, she was straight- 
way put to shame by the question, ‘‘Where 
would St. Ignatius be now if Mrs. Witherby 
had not vowed to keep it even with the rival 
parish of Calvary?” Calvary had at the best 
three rich men in its congregation to St. Igna- 
tius’ two. But one malcontent had ever been 
known to parry that thrust, and she took her- 
self incontinently into the hostile camp of Cal- 
vary. 

Mrs. Witherby was rising fifty. In her 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


7 


joutli she had been sjlph-like, with the narrow- 
est hips and shoulders. Added flesh made her 
almost cylindrical. She was, furthermore, 
erect, with a lineless face, an edged voice, and 
n pair of the coldest blue eyes that ever 
twinkled from beneath brown-lashed lids. Not- 
withstanding her flesh, she kept still some pre- 
tension to beauty, was always correctly gowned 
nnd prided herself not a little upon the fact 
that she was never in any point more than a 
month behind the extreme of New York fash- 
ion. 

Back in the dark ages of an unfashionable 
youth Mrs. Witherby had contracted a habit of 
dominating the entertainments of her church. 
In that same remote period she had learned 
that even the churchliest felt the appeal of 
spectacle — spectacle within proper restrictions. 
Then the spectacle whs labeled as tableaux. 
Mrs. Witherby and her world had, of course, 
got very far beyond anything so semi-rural. 
With them it was a cantata, a sacred drama^ — 
the ten virgins duly staged drew many shekels 
into the Lord’s treasury — or an oracle with 
processional accompaniment. Perhaps it was 
the processional accompaniment > which sug- 
gested to Mrs. Witherby her crowning achieve- 
ment — ^The Historical Procession of the Cen- 
turies.” 

It musit be confessed that the centuries were 
personified by figures somewhat capriciously 
chosen. Mrs. Witherby did the choosing, with 


8 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


some faint show of modifying suggestion from 
Earle Brewster. Earle had ^pent a couple of 
years abroad, and had brought back no less 
than nine pictures, all with foreign names 
scribbled indistinctly in the corners. Posses- 
sion of so much art gave him a sort of pre- 
scriptive right to knowledge of any sort of pic- 
tures. ^^Hang chronology! You want above 
everything figures that are picturesque,’’ he 
had said. ^^Big, splendid women who know 
how to wear clothes, or to go without them, 
and men who had backgrounds, whatever else 
they may have lacked.” 

The saying certainly explained Semiramis. 
Without the vivifying suggestion it contained 
Mrs. Witherby would never have thought of 
Assyria’s warrior empress. It is problematical, 
too, if, after she had pitched upon the charac- 
ter, she would have cast Selene for it but for 
the fate which we miscall chance. As Mrs. 
Witherby herself explained, the procession 
was so immense she was simply forced to go 
outside the leaders, or go without proper per- 
formers. 

It began with the casting out from Eden. 
That ought to have been tremendously im- 
pressive, but was marred by the fact that 
Adam’s skin-coat sat very much awry, being, in 
fact. Judge Witherby’s fur-lined coat worn 
wrong side out, and much too big for its inhabi- 
tant. Then, too, the Angel of the Flaming 
Sword had a head too small for his halo. Mrs. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


9 


Witherby breathed a long, relieved sigh when 
the curtain fell, and said in Earle Brewster’s 
ear: ^^Thank heaven, we are through with the 
Scriptures. Now there is room for effect 
without shocking anybody’s sensibilities.” 

Succeeding pictures had won applause, some- 
times hearty, but oftener perfunctory. Semi- 
ramis Came seventh on the list. When the cur- 
tains parted, revealing her bending slightly to 
take a tribute of pearls presented by a captive 
barbarian warrior in a casket of beaten gold, 
there was an instant flattering hush, broken 
only by the deep-strained breaths which speak 
of rapt vision. 

Selene was tall, but somehow people had not 
noticed it before. She was of a mold at once 
imperial and motherly. Her blue black silky 
hair grew low about a broad, smooth brow, 
and swept back in heavy masses that seemed 
to shape themselves naturally into a proper 
resting place for a crown. Her throat was an 
ivory pillar, melting into the swell of broad 
shoulders and Arm, cleanly-modeled bust. She 
had deep blue, black-lashed eyes, that in some 
lights and some moods were wells of liquid 
purple, yet harmonized amazingly with the 
warm olive of her skin, the varying rose of her 
cheeks, and the vivid scarlet of her lips. 

The lips themselves were the keynote to her 
character — warm, soft, vivid, neither large nor 
small, well cut, and full of subtle potentialities, 
now softening to an enchanting smile, now 


10 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


hardening to a thin, immobile line. They were 
sensuous lips, yet in no wise sensual. In them 
one read, if only one were wise enough, a na- 
ture that could love, defy time, defy scorn or 
slight, doubly defying death, yet so balanced 
and rounded it could hold itself hard, even 
against itself. 

Her royal robe was of purple, bordered with 
ermine, and barbarically bedizened with gold 
and gems. It fell away from the columnar 
throat, bare save for a rope of pearls — the 
same pearls which were the captive^s gift. He 
knelt at her feet, holding up the casket with 
both hancjs. She had made fast the gemmy 
strand and wound it with slow, imperial grace 
again and again about her throat. History, of 
course, gave no warrant for the action, but in 
behalf of church decoration Barcelona felt 
that it could afford to make history to please 
itself. And nobody could deny that the wind- 
ing of the pearl rope added life to the picture, 
to say nothing of displaying Selene’s fine arms. 
The sleeves fell away from them at the shoul- 
der, and they were covered with bracelets half 
way to the elbow. Any other woman so be- 
dight would have looked poor and tawdry. Se- 
lene herself might not have borne the burden 
of it but for the strange inner light which 
shone from her, making her whole personality 
so radiant it brought her gorgeous setting into 
properly sudbued tone. 

Two black-clad slaves stood back of her, wav- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


11 


ing quaint, long-handled fans above her head. 
Her throne was richly gilt and raised upon 
a dais of gold and purple. At the back there 
was a note of scarlet in the hangings. In the 
foreground a small chest of carved wood, over- 
flowing with rich Eastern stuffs. And as she 
wound the pearls about her throat a reed- 
player hidden amid the palms in the back- 
ground blew and blew, as though timing her 
'motion, now loudly as in triumph, now in wail- 
ing minors, as though crying defeat and be- 
seeching the victor^s mercy. 

One minute of the hush — ^then the house 
shook with thunders of applause. Again, 
again, came the cries, the handclappings. The 
curtains had to be drawn thrice before the 
clamor was stilled. Even with that nobody 
had his fill of gazing. Mrs. Witherby ought to 
have been enraptured. Instead of that she 
frowned faintly. Earle Brewster was at her 
elbow. He had half forced her to take her place 
in front of the curtain, saying masterfully (he 
was in most things masterful): ^Tf you stay 
behind you will make everybody so nervous; 
the whole thing will be a failure. You have 
done your best — more than anyone else, pos- 
sibly, could do. Now trust providence a little.” 

will- — if you will help providence,” she had 
said; but he shook his head obstinately. ^Those 
poor martyrs have come to regard me as after 
a sort your second self,” he said. shall help 


12 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


them very much more by sitting in next to the 
front row and looking as though I knew it was 
impossible for anybody to bungle.’’ The event 
had proved his wisdom, yet he did not exult 
over the fact. Mrs. Witherby, glancing up at 
him as the curtains at last hid Semiramis from 
view, was amazed by the look in his face. It 
had grown very white, the mouth was set, the 
eyes tensely brilliant. She laid her hand lightly 
upon his arm, saying, in a guarded whisper: 
^‘Are you ill? Had you not better go out for a 
breath of air?” 

He shrank lightly from her touch. His color 
came back with a rush, and the lids dropped 
over his steely gray eyes. They ought to have 
been blue eyes. Aside from them he was of the 
flaxenest Saxon type, his face clean cut and 
impassive, his chest broad and deep, his stature 
something beyond middle height. Altogether, 
he had a thoroughbred look until one came 
to examine minutely. Then one saw that the 
fine, well-kept hands, soft and flexile and long- 
fingered as they were, had stubbed finger-tips 
and the short nails that bespeak strong animal 
instincts. The tale they told was repeated and 
confirmed in the lines beneath the chin and the 
thick, fleshy involutions of the smallish ears. 
A physiognomist would have gathered thence, 
and rightly, that here was a man of force and 
fire, imperious as death, inflexible in pursuing 
his own ends, holding to his own purposes. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


13 


swayed but never melted by the tropic glow of 
passion, and, in the exactions of surrender, 
cruel as the grave. 

Barcelona neither knew nor cared for all 
this. It took the surface Earle Brewster to 
its heart of hearts, and reckoned him in all 
points the model he was in a manner bound to 
be. He had been born to a good name and very 
considerable riches. He had married not over 
happily, it is true, but fate had kindly relieved 
him within five years, leaving him as memen- 
toes of his dead wife a small, imperious daugh- 
ter and a fortune even larger than his own. 
It was his absolutely — the dead woman had 
loved him so entirely she had fiouted settle- 
ments. Perhaps it was her trust which had 
moved him, or, likelier, the stirrings of re- 
morse that had made him promise her upon 
her deathbed that she should have no suc- 
cessor. 

People generally understand that such prom- 
ises are made to be broken. People about 
Earle Brewster said as much, adding, however, 
that here was the exception to the rule. What- 
ever he had promised that he would keep, no 
matter at what stress to himself. But they 
did not look for any sort of stress. Earle was 
past the age of hot and dazzling passions. Per- 
haps, if left free, he might have wedded again 
after a decorously long interval. As it was, 
with his child and his ambitions, he would 
doubtless do very well, and certainly keep faith 


14 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


with the woman who slept so peacefully under 
a costly marble shaft upon the fairest hilltop 
of Barcelona’s cemetery. 

He had known Selene ever since she was 
ten years old. That is to say, he had been nebu- 
lously conscious that such an entity existed 
and moved about within his local environment. 
He might even have been able to tell one who 
sought knowledge of her that she was or- 
phaned and without near kin; that she had 
been married at fifteen to a man much her 
senior, who had died within six months, leav- 
ing her but slender provision; that she 
lived with her husband’s mother, who was also 
widowed and drew a pension; that the two 
went out very little, and, though they had a 
pew in St. Ignatius, came but irregularly to 
church. So much he might have repeated, and, 
in repeating, echoed the reiterated gossip of 
his world in general, his mother and Mrs. With- 
erby in particular. But of Selene herself — the 
soul, the woman — he was profoundly ignorant 
until he saw Semiramis. 

had rather it had been anybody else — yes, 
anybody,” Mrs. Witherby said, nodding almost 
imperceptibly toward the stage. ^^Of course, I 
am glad to have the Procession a success, but 
that sort of thing is so very apt to go to the 
head of — well, you know that sort of person.” 

Earle got up somewhat abruptly, saying: 
^‘Excuse me; I have just thought of something 
that must be done,” and hurried down the 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


15 


aisle. Two minutes later he was behind the 
scenes, smiling down at Selene whimsically, 
and saying, as he kissed her hand: am too 

good an American, much too good a republi- 
can, to miss such an opportunity of showing 
my sense of the fact that even in the manufac- 
ture of empresses these United States beat the 
world.’’ 


CHAPTER n. 


Selene drew away her hand with a little 
deprecatory laugh. The illumination was dy- 
ing. In its stead there had come a sort of trem- 
ulous pallor. It amazed, it almost frightened 
her. Her ear was not wholly unused to gallant 
speeches. True, she had lived in semi-seclu- 
sion throughout the twelve years of widow- 
hood, but more than one man had tried to come 
a-wooing and been sent civilly about his busi- 
ness. She was not reckoned among Barce- 
lona beauties, nor of those who led its fashion, 
yet there was that in her face, in her slow, soft 
graciousness, her restful charm, which had suf- 
ficed to ensnare vagrant fancies. 

She was slow mentally, but it was a sort of 
alert slowness, very far removed from stupid- 
ity. It was part of her equable temperament. 
She had a sort of cushiony and good-humored 
tolerance for all the world, herself included. 
Witness the fact that she did not fret over find- 
ing in mind in the morning the retort or the 
quip which should have sprung into being over 
night. Although she was well toward thirty, 
her nature had kept in many points the ele- 
mental simplicity of a child^s. She had loved 
her husband with a timid fondness — rather 
as one under direction than as one who makes 
a heart’s choice. He had been her guardian 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


17 


and always more than kind. When he had 
said, ^^My girl, you must marry me,’’ she had 
obeyed just as she would have obeyed had he 
said, ^^My girl, you must go away to school.” 

She had mourned him with a deep yet placid 
sorrow. Often in the first years she had felt 
amazed, almost shocked, indeed, at herself, for 
finding life still good, the world green and 
beautiful, the sunlight an enchantment, now 
that he was no longer there to share in it all. 
She was lonely, desolate even at times, but 
her’s was not the searing sorrow that bore 
down his mother, whitening her hair in a week, 
making her face drawn, her eyes heavy with 
weeping, her nights one long rebellion and 
ache of loss and longing. wonder if I should 
feel so, too, if I — if we had a child.” Selene 
sometimes speculated a little wistfully. In the 
face of daylight she told herself it must be she 
had no capacity for deep feeling of any sort. 
She could wish it otherwise. Anything, even 
crushing sorrow, might be better than the 
deadly dullness of void days. In her heart of 
hearts she knew better, knew that deep un- 
derneath there lay a volcanic stratum, that 
might one day rise to appal her or to destroy. 

Until that night Earle Brewster had been 
among the commonplaces of her existence. His 
home lay quite at the outside of Barcelona, but 
every day she saw him driving past, sometimes 
alone in his dog cart ; of tener in the handsome 
open carriage, with his lady mother on the seat 


18 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


beside him. He never drove with his little 
girl. The child had her own trap, with a nurse 
and groom to take her for airings. Once upon 
a picnic excursion Selene had gone past the 
Brewster demesne and seen a small, haughty 
person who gave herself airs sitting in a basket 
chair strapped to the back of a meek gray 
donkey, which a groom, almost as meek-look- 
ing, led up and down the lawn. 

Five days in each week Selene worked half 
the day. Barcelona had a circulating library, 
which kept open for that space of time. Selene 
hated the work. Not work in general, but this 
tedious going over and giving out of books, put- 
ting them in place again, keeping records and 
tallies, warning delinquents, and making a roll 
of such as must be dealt with for the powers 
that were. She did not care much for books 
unless they had pictures in them, or told of 
painters, painting, or in some way opened up 
the magical mysteries of form and color. All 
her life she had craved to be an artist. If only 
she could fix in imperishable form the dreams 
and fancies and glories that swam before her 
in the snow, the sunshine, the rain, then, in- 
deed, existence would have new meaning for 
her and would seem a gift precious beyond 
rubies. 

The library held her prisoned from nine until 
one. Throughout the afternoons and the 
blessed Saturdays she went out, nearly al- 
ways alone, nearly always with her sketch- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


19 


book. Her sketches were the despair of the 
Barcelona drawing masters, but once, when 
she had slipped up to the city, a hundred miles 
away, and sought out'an artist, he had looked 
at them narrowly, some of them more than 
once, then flung them down, saying almost 
irritably as he looked her over: ^^Here, you 
have the feeling, the thing that really makes 
the artist; but you know nothing except what 
it will trouble you to forget. Two years of for- 
getting, with three of learning might — but, no; 
it is impossible — your age is against it — then, 
too, you say you have no money. Better give 
up the thought altogether. Of course, you will 
not give up this sort of thing,’^ touching the 
sketches as he spoke. ^Tt will hardly profit 
you materially, but I doubt if in the end it will 
not do you more real good, give you more real 
happiness, which is the end of all things, than 
if you starved and studied and endured all 
things in hope of a career.’’ 

He showed himself cruelly kind. A whole 
brood of fluttering, half-fledged hopes and 
plans were struck down by his words. The 
elder Mrs. Barber was as wax in Selene’s 
hands. ^^You are all my boy left me — all I 
have to live for, Selene,” she had said in the 
first abandonment of her grief, laying her head 
upon Selene’s throbbing breast. Since then 
there had been but one will in the household. 
It spoke volumes for the sanity and wholesome- 
ness of Selene’s nature .that her mother-in- 


20 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


law^s abject submission made her only the 
more regardful of her wishes. 

The two lived simply, yet with a certain 
touch of elegance. Their home was their own, 
so the narrow joint income sufficed. If the 
house was unpretentious, it was very comforta- 
ble — a gray cottage, with a tiny yard in front 
and a bit of garden back. Selene made the 
most of both spaces. Throughout the short 
northwestern summer she kept them riotously 
a-blossom with sweet, old fashioned flowers. 
Flowers, indeed, were her companions, counsel- 
ors, and often her comforters. They spoke to 
her as human lips could not speak. Even the 
humblest had its message for her, but most of 
all she loved the roses. She wore them in her 
hair and at her throat. Their color and frag- 
rance made up for her the whole joy of June. 

As Earle Brewster stood smiling down at 
her, suddenly there came to her a great waft of 
rose scent, and she was aware of someone ap- 
proaching with a sheaf of hothouse roses in 
the hollow of his arm. The rose-bearer looked 
inquiringly at Earle, who nodded slightly and 
held out his hand. In the next breath he was 
saying, as he crowded the flowers upon her, 
^^See how provident I am? It was borne in 
upon me this morning, that somebody tonight 
would make a famous success, and I determined 
to reward that person flttingly.’’ 

‘^Oh, I do not know. The Procession is not 
done yet; besides, there are the singers and the 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


21 


young lady who recites/’ Selene murmured; 
her eyes again illumined as they rested upon 
the flowers. Brewster shrugged his shoulders 
expressively. wish you would be honest/’ 
he said. ^^You might — with me. You know as 
well as I know that the minute and a half of 
you was worth — yes, more than worth — all the 
three hours of the rest.” 

^‘You are too kind,” Selene said. ^^No, I had 
better say, not quite kind. Let me divide the 
flowers. There are enough for all.” 

^^No.” Earle put out his hand decisively. 
^^They are your property, of 'course. You can 
keep them or throw them away, but I will not 
have them scattered as though they were so 
much rubbish. Do you know what happens to 
those ill-conditioned persons who slight a gift 
before the giver’s eyes?” 

^^No; what is it?” Selene asked, laughing 
again — a little odd laugh that masked a shiver. 
Brewster looked at her, pretending to frown 
p'ortentously. cannot tell you — here,” he 
said, glancing about the cramped, disordered 
space. ^Tnstead, I shall come some evening 
and tell you, when you cannot escape paying 
me the attention the subject deserves.” 

shall have to tell the rector how you dis- 
courage unselflshness,” Selene said, lightly. 
She was still trembling, but her pallor had van- 
ished. A soft, steady stain of rose burned in 
either cheek. Brewster let his eyes rest on her 
with a long, devouring gaze. ^Tt is odd,” he 


22 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


said, at last. have known each other al- 

ways and are just now Ending each other out. 
How do you account for it?^’ 

do not account for it — because I do not 
know it/’ Selene said, not trying to meet his 
gaze. He shook his head impatiently. ^^Why do 
you fence with me?” he said. ^^Something has 
happened to us tonight. You know it as well 
as I.” 

^^Letmego! You must! I have to change my 
dress,” Selene said, drawing away from him. 
She was still in her royal robes. Again he 
caught her hand, lifted it level with his head, 
and let his fingers follow the line of her bare 
arm. She drew back with flashing eyes. A 
tall screen, one of the many properties crowded 
back of the stage, cut them off from other view. 

think a gentleman would hardly take such 
advantage of time and place,” she said, speak- 
ing very low. He stood directly in her path, 
and showed no inclination to step out of it. 
^‘You know I am helpless,” she went on, in the 
same hushed voice. ^^That I will not, I cannot 
protest here. Now please let me pass. See, I 
am keeping your flowers. I will even promise 
not to throw them away, but to take them 
straight home with me.” 

^^You are not going?” he said, decidedly. 
^^Not for two hours, that is. You must stay 
for the reception, you know. Mrs. Witherby 
will never forgive either of us if the star of her 
choice Procession does not show" up there.” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


23 


^That shows how little you understand about 
matters of this sort/^ Selene said. Mrs. 
Witherby remembers me at all it will be to be 
glad I had sense enough to go away when I 
was no longer useful or> ornamental. Oh, I 
am not the least bit angry over it. She cannot 
help being what she was born, any more than 
you or I can.’’ 

^What a lot of bad manners your doctrine 
would saddle on our Creator,” Earle said, ir- 
reverently. Selene gave him a look, then moved 
as if to pass him. He stepped aside, but only 
half way — if she passed him she must brush 
close to his breast. His eyes were hard and 
bright. An unwonted red showed faintly in 
the ivor*y bronze of his cheek. Seeing her hesi- 
tate he smiled and drew yet further back, beck- 
oning her to pass. Suddenly they heard Mrs. 
Witherby’s voice, dry and rasping. She was 
saying acidly: ^^Has anybody seen Mrs. Bar- 
ber? I must find her. You know she has a lot 
of jewels. I do hope she knows enough to keep 
them safe until I can get them in my hands.” 

^^Here they are,” Selene began, darting out 
and beginning nervously to strip herself of her 
gauds and gew^gaws. Brewster stepped to her 
side, an ugly sneer on his face. He looked Mrs. 
Witherby squarely in the eye and said, raising 
his voice so all could hear: ^^Blame me for any 
delay in handing back the jewels, Mrs. With- 
erby. I alone am answerable. Mrs. Barber 
has been anxious to be rid of them ever since 


24 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


she left the stage.’’ Then to Selene: ^^You have 
been kind enough to say I may take you home. 
When you are ready you will find me just out- 
side the stage door.” 

Selene walked away slow and stately, her 
head high, her eyes burning. Mrs. Witherby 
gasped and turned to Brewster. He had van- 
ished. A scowl so black settled upon her face. 
One onlooker said to another, speaking low and 
behind his hand: ^^Here’s a tableau that does 
not fit into the Procession, yet I will lay odds 
it would bring down the house.” 

^Wou’re right,” nodded the other. ‘^Oh, but 
Sister Witherby is in a heavenly frame of mind. 
She’ll never forgive herself for bringing out 
the young widow Barber so, though there is 
at least three hundred dollars in the hall to- 
night.” 

Selene was coming back, still slow, still 
stately, still with the light in her eyes. She 
walked straight up to Mrs. Witherby and hud- 
dled a glittering mass into her hands, saying: 
^Tlease let me know tomorrow if all you en- 
trusted me with is there.” Then with a cere- 
monious bow she passed on into outer dark- 
ness. 


CHAPTER III. 


A fortnight later Selene stood in her little 
parlor, leaning her elbow on the mantle and 
gazing into the red depths of a glowing fire. It 
was late winter. Outside the pavement rang 
under the tread of casual feet, the air was 
crisply vital, as it has a trick of being when 
winter is on the turn of spring, and the wind 
blew up the street and around corners with an 
edge of steel in its teeth. 

Yet the room was odorous all through with 
the fresh sweetness of roses^ — hothouse roses, 
heavy-headed, loose-petaled blossoms, full sis- 
ters to those which had been thrust upon Se- 
lene while she wore her royal robes. They had 
come to her that morning — a great boxful. In- 
side there was a note, which ran: ‘^No doubt ^ 
you think you have escaped me. By these pres- 
ents learn your mistake. I am coming tonight, 
whether or no I may, to teach you what risk 
you run when you slight the gifts of the gods.’’ 

There was no name, but she had understood 
perfectly, and dropped the bold screed with a 
little happy cry. Her heart had been yearn- 
ing, hungering, wondering, all the days since 
their parting. He had left her upon her own 
doorstep, pressing her hand warmly in both 
his own and saying very low: ^^Remember — 
until I come.” She had remembered — ah, how 


26 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


faithfully! — never dreaming of doubt or mis- 
trust when his coming was delayed. Her days 
had been full of happy unrest. Through half 
the night she had lain staring into the dark- 
ness, filling its void with memories of his looks, 
his tones, the turn of his head, the tensely 
thrilling clasp of his hands. 

Something of maiden shyness yet clung to 
her. She was amazed at herself because of this 
open delight in love. It was love. At last she 
knew what love meant. A flood of bliss, im- 
measurable, unfathomable, had caught her 
away from her gray, lonely life, and borne her 
into a realm of faery. At last she comprehend- 
ed the heights and depths of the human heart, 
the human soul, the gladness of full joy, the 
sadness of lack and loss. The comprehension 
made her infinitely tender toward her husband’s 
mother. The two had never jarred, but their 
lives had gone forward in a certain subdued 
key, each taking the other’s regard upon trust 
and neither going to the pains of letting the 
other see it was more than casual. 

Now Selene could not endure that. She smiled 
at her companion across the breakfast table, 
kissed her when she went away to work, waved 
her a greeting as soon as she was in sight of 
home, and in a hundred tender, small ways 
made the elder woman happy. Mrs. Barber was 
small and slight, with little wisps of dry hair 
alw^ays blowing about her face. She had a wist- 
ful sympathy with Selene’s changed mood. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 27 

‘‘Seems like you are getting ready to blossom 
with the flowers, daughter,’’ she said more than 
once when Selene broke into a snatch of song 
or gave an especially sunshiny laugh. “I am 
glad of it — so glad,” the poor mother went on. 
“That was John’s last thought — last wish. ‘Try 
to make my girl happy, mother,’ he said to me 
almost the very last thing — not an hour beforey 
he died. I have tried, but somehow I’m afraid 
I haven’t known very well how to do it. I’ve 
been afraid even to love you too much for fear 
it would not please you.” 

Selene had stopped her there with kisses — 
kisses warm and fond, such as women often 
give their hurt children, who come nearest their 
heart of hearts. “One can never have enough 
love, mother,” she had said. “I believe God is 
love, and life is love. It is sacrilege to even 
think of loving too much.” 

To-night she had put on a Greek gown of 
heavy, lusterless white stuff. It fell about her 
in classic folds that gave a new distinction to 
even her perfect outline. Her hair made a 
dusky coronal above her brow. There was a 
vivid crimson rotse enmeshed in it, just where 
the rich reflections of it would best set off the 
creamy pallor of the forehead. Another rose, 
as red, and richly full-blown, nestled amid the 
lace upon her breast. Neither ribbon nor trin- 
ket marred the swan-curve of the bare white 
neck. Indeed, the only gleam of metal about 
her was that thrown up by her wedding ring — 
a heavy band of beaten gold, which never left 


28 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


her finger. Mrs. Barber had looked at it with 
humid eyes as Selene passed through the sit- 
ting room on her way to the parlor. All the life 
left in her withered frame concentrated upon 
the memory of her son. For his memory she 
was bitterly jealous. She would go mourning 
all her days, so it had seemed to her impossible 
that Selene^s heart should wake and stir to a 
new blossoming. She had even seen the change 
in her without comprehending it until the roses 
came. They spoke a language she could not 
affect to misunderstand — ^the first word of it 
and the last was love. 

Still, she had said nothing. In all things she 
was just. She had told herself over and over 
again it was better so. She felt her strength 
ebbing yearly. A little while and Selene would 
be alone. It was better, ever so much better, 
that she should form new ties, make for herself 
the potentiality of a new home, when the old 
one, safe and narrow, was both desolate and 
impossible. Her pension as an officers widow 
(Colonel Barber had died at the head of his 
men in the fighting before Richmond) was much 
more than half their maintenance. She won- 
dered a little if she had not been wrong in not 
letting John go to take his father^s vacant 
place. He had been wild to do it, but he had 
seemed to her so young — only sixteen, though 
of man’s full stature — ^she had clung to him 
and kissed him, and besought him, until he had 
agreed to stay at home. 

If he had gone there might have been a pen- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


29 


sion for his widow. Somehow, though he had 
not lacked brains or industry, he had never got 
nearer success than the promise of it. He was 
himself so open, so honest, so steadfast, it did 
not occur to him that other men who made fair 
weather to his face could be less so. He had 
trusted them to his hurt again and again, with- 
out ever learning the lesson of suspicion. It 
was his mother who grew angry and said bitter 
things of his ill-users. He gave them the tol- 
erant charity of silence when all other charity 
was impossible. 

Selene’s father had been his closest friend, 
and Selene herself he had loved from baby- 
hood. When he married her he had deemed 
himself on the high road to fortune — fortune 
which he coveted mainly for her sake. As sim- 
ply his ward, society would not let him love and 
care for her; as his wife, he could give her 
without let or hindrance all that her beauty- 
worshiping nature craved. 

Death is sometimes a crowning mercy. It 
was certainly so in the case of John Barber. 
He had died quickly — almost painlessly — just 
one day too soon to know that the venture in 
which he had risked everything had come to 
naught. Selene had knelt beside him, sobbing 
as a child sobs, with his failing fingers thread- 
ing her silken hair. But his eyes had lifted 
with their last light to his mother’s faded blue 
ones, and the glance was at once an entreaty 
and a benediction. 


30 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


must not grudge her happiness, no matter 
how it comes/’ the mother repeated inly, as the 
door shut behind Selene. She did not know 
who had sent the roses. Selene had been de- 
lightfully vague in her tale of the Procession 
and her own triumph in it. Earle Brewster’s 
name would have deepened Mrs. Barber’s heart- 
ache to apprehension. Socially she was far 
wiser and more learned than her daughter. She 
knew that though the Barbers and Brewstei’s 
were born equals, both of that lustier New Eng- 
land stock which had transplanted itself for 
the peopling of the Northwest, there had come 
a great change since the time of the Civil War, 
in which Earle Brewster’s father made a for- 
tune. Ever since his wife (Earle’s mother) had 
held herself very high — not, it is true, cutting 
her old familiar friends outright, but treating 
them with a distant, icy friendliness, much 
harder to endure than an actual slight. She 
had joined with Mrs. Witherby in ruling Barce- 
lona’s upper crust until the town spread and 
grew beyond their domination. 

Still they kept rein over their own faction of 
its social world. It was well nigh an absolute 
despotism. Earle himself rebelled against it 
now and then only, and never, it was said, very 
successfully. Oddly enough, he had married to 
please himself, in spite of strong opposition 
from both his social arbiters. Still more oddly, 
his wife had very soon conquered a peace with 
them. She had been a slender, fair-haired 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


31 


woman, with insolently beautiful blue eyes and 
a languid, creamy voice, who had not hesitated 
to flount openly the best of Barcelona, or to 
let it be known how immeasurably inferior, in 
her opinion, Barcelona and Barcelonians were 
to everything in her native East. 

Yet /she had not cared to live there. ^^We 
should only be part of the people,’’ she had ex- 
plained, languidly. ^^Here we are the people.” 
If her meaning was not plain to the listener 
she had not cared to elucidate it. Her husband 
had never been quite sure whether he most 
loved or hated her. There had been scenes 
from almost the first week of the honeymoon. 
More -than once he had gone away vowing inly 
it was for good. But he had always come back 
before very long, drawn by the triple chain of 
habit, association, and affection. 

His father had died just as he came out of 
college. Ever since the wpight of great con- 
cerns had rested upon him, not crushingly, but 
with a sort of steadying force. Semi-occasion- 
ally he liked being a man of affairs. At other 
times, in the depths of his own conscience, he 
was honest enough to face the conviction that 
living meant to him pleasing himself. What- 
ever he craved that he set himself to gain, not 
regardless of who might suffer by the gaining, 
but in the manner that should make his grati- 
fication of least offense to his world. 

For example, occasionally there fell on him 
a madness for gaming. For a while he let it 


32 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


gnaw; then, when the desire became so acute 
there was a certain exquisite delight in the 
pain of it, he went away to one of the great 
cities, searched out some game of hazard, and 
won and lost, won and lost, until he nb longer 
cared for the pastime. Wine did not appeal 
to him. He was too full-blooded, too possessed 
of a spirit approximating the glow of intoxica- 
tion; but if he had chosen to drink, he would 
have done it after the same contained and self- 
protective fashion. As to women, specifica- 
tions are needless. Given a man of such tem- 
perament, celibate or widowed, and the com- 
monest understanding can supply probabilities. 

Something of all this Mrs. Barber knew 
through her dead son’s confidences — con- 
fidences he had never dreamed of giv- 
ing to Selene’s young ears. Though 
John was ten years the older, he had 
chanced to know Brewster better than the 
mass. The two had not been closer than sur- 
face friends — John’s mother, indeed, was his 
only intimate — but he had liked Brewster after 
a sort, and discussed him as a type rather than 
an individual, paying sometimes: ‘^Brewster 
seems to me to be a revival, a reversion to the 
old Puritan buccaneers, who sat in meeting 
and sang devoutly, between whiles the voyages 
they made on the high seas to plunder and to 
slay. He has the primal human instincts, hot 
and strong underneath his veneer of Puritan 
descent and college training. He would not 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


33 


outrage the veneer for his right hand. He is as 
far from giving in upon any point where he has 
set his heart. A moral whirlwind even could 
not take him out of himself. He might die for 
a thing which he believed to be right, but the 
dying would have to be done strictly in accord 
with the conventions of his own mind.^^ 

Human judgments are errant. John Barber 
perhaps had seen no deeper than his fellow- 
men. Certainly there was nothing sinister in 
the look of Earle Brewster as he stood upon 
ae Barber steps pulling at the asthmatic bell. 
It sent a feeble tinkle through the resounding 
spaces inside, but no noise of steps came after 
for the space of a minute. Earle smiled at the 
delay. As it lengthened by another minute his 
smile grew merrier. He made no effort to ring 
again. When at last Selene opened the door, 
keeping herself shielded by the leaf of it, he 
slipped inside, saying, with no pretense of 
greeting: know all about it. You thought 

1 had waited so long it would not hurt to make 
me wait a minute longer.’^ 

^^You are quite right,’’ Selene said, a dimp- 
ling smile playing about her mouth. ^Jn fact, 
I had serious doubts as to whether I should or 
should not make you wait — always.” 

‘ Jndeed,” he said, taking both her hands in 
his. ^^There is a story back of that waiting. 
Come and let me tell it to you, then you your- 
self shall say what it means — caprice or des- 
tiny?” 


CHAPTER IV. 


^^Are you sure, perfectly sure, you are quite 
right in your mind?^’ Selene said, affecting to 
look at him anxiously as they came into the 
lighted parlor. He still held the hand he had 
taken, and stooped to catch the other. The ac- 
tion brought them face to face. He studied 
her a breathes space, then caught hei‘ to him 
and kissed her twice, saying in her ear: 
^^Wicked one, I see you mean to make sport of 
me — yet you know, quite as I know, the blessed 
truth.^’ 

^^Let me go!^^ Selene said, drawing away from 
him. ^A^ou have no right — 

^^Must our love be measured by the hours of 
our acquaintance?’’ he asked, pretending to 
frown at her. ^^Sit down here, you rebellious 
person. Do you not know^ it is wicked to waste 
our minutes together — our precious minutes — 
in vain contentions?” 

me! I wonder who is contending?” Se- 
lene said, sitting down as far from him as pos- 
sible, her hands primly folded in her lap. For 
a minute he stood, leaning upon the mantel, 
looking down at her and affecting to see only 
vacancy. came in search of a queen, my 
soul’s queen,” he said. left her here only a 
little while back. Where can she be hiding?” 

^^Maybe you had better call in the police,” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


35 


Selene said, with eyes of meek iniioceuce. She 
was fighting as woman fights her last desperate 
fight against the thrilling, overwhelming flood 
that sweeps her from all hold of herself. She 
had all a modest woman’s pride; she did not 
wish to seem too light, too easily won. All he 
had spoken her heart had echoed in gracious 
gladness. She was throbbing through and 
through in the bliss of love acknowledged and 
returned, yet some instinct rose up within her 
to stay the acknowledgment of full surrender. 

but you are wicked!” he said, bending to 
take her face in his hau:is. ^^You leave to those 
eyes all the task of saying you are glad of my 
coming. Tell me so now with your lips, else I 
shall never let you go.” 

Selene shook her head and smiled. She 
dared not trust herself to speak. Her voice 
would be one tremor of joy^ — she was even 
afraid there would be tears in it. He sat down 
at her side and drew her head to his breast. 
^^Be quiet! You know you belong to me,” he 
said, imperatively. ^^We were born for each 
other, and have wasted ever so many years in 
finding out the fact. We will not waste an- 
other one. Darling, darling, do you think there 
is a power on earth that can keep us apart?” 

In answer her hand crept shyly to his cheek. 
He drew the arm about his neck, and buried his 
lips in her hair. His arms clasped her con- 
vulsively. last — I have found my queen,” 

he whispered, his voice a low, shaken whisper. 


36 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


“Mj queen, who loves even as she is loved. 
That is only justice, sweetheart. Now, for two 
weeks I have endured the torment of the 
damned — all for your sweet sake.’^ 

“Why did you stay away?’’ Selene asked. 
He put her face a little away so he could look 
full into her eyes, as he answered: ^Because I 
had to be sure.” 

do not quite understand,” she began, try- 
ing to draw herself away. He held her fast, 
saying w ith a grim laugh : ^^Of course, she does 
not understand. The demons of pain and pas- 
sion have not laid hold on her.” Then quickly 
and softly: ^Tt was this way, darling — when 
you took possession of me I was like a man 
dazed. It was so new, so strange, I could hard- 
ly believe it. I am no saint — even to you I 
shall not try to pose as one. I thought I 
knew every phase of passional attraction — of 
what men call love. This — this enchantment 
was — none of them. I was bewitched, taken 
out of, away from my usual self. You made 
the world. All I felt, or thought, or knew 
clearly, was a wild desire, a restless longing to 
seek you, to make you my own, and carry you 
away from all the world. I had got back to 
primal human instincts. Adam perhaps felt 
so for his Eve. The cave-dwellers, I make no 
doubt, had the same fierce and consuming pas- ' 
sion for the mates they won in fight. You see, 

I am glazing nothing. It is my belief that in 
the beginning souls and bodies are created dual 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


37 


111] its — one-half male, the other female. We 
are the parts of such a unit. The miracle is 
that we should have not known it sooner. I 
cannot get over that — it was the thing that 
made me doubt and led me to test our love by 
putting a thousand miles between us.’’ 

am better than you. I never doubted,” 
Selene whispered, hiding her face in his 
breast as she spoke. He kissed her twice and 
went on: ^^You knew — women always know. 
But for your sake I had to be quite sure. I 
said to myself, Tf the city can dispel this witch- 
ery I will let it do it. If time can weaken it, 
if distance can dull it, then I may live, lacking 
this woman. She is not supreme. I will see 
if her empire is over my soul — or only over 
eager and craving senses — ” 

He stopped, put her gently out of his arms, 
got up and walked the room’s length two or 
three times. When he came back to her he 
was pale and quiet, his face drawn, his voice 
a little husky. ^What need to tell the rest?” 
he said, ^^except that — you held me through 
everything. Your eyes shone between me and 
the gayest spectacle; your face rose before me 
like dawnrise when I was satiate with venal 
charms. I had to come back — ^to come back to 
my own. You cannot send me away.” 

Selene was sobbing softly, her face hidden in 
her hands. After a little while he took the 
hands gently from her face and kissed the 
humid eyes. ^^Sweetheart, these are the last 


38 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


teaiis you shall shed for me/’ he said. ‘^1 shall 
remember them always as the diamonds of my 
soul, the most precious of all created thin^.” 

“They are distilled from my love as the dew 
is distilled from the night/’ Selene said softly. 
^^Indeed, I do love you. No, you did not make 
me do it — not any more than I made you. It 
must be fate. I — am — so happy I — am al- 
most frightened — it seems too good to last,” 
the words coming hardly above her breath. 

shall last!” he cried, with a low, triumph- 
ant laugh, again catching her to him. ^^Hushl 
I will have no ifs and buts,” he went on. ^‘The 
semblance of doubt, even, is sacrilege. You 
are mine, mine, mine, to have and to hold, so 
long as life endures.” 

Silence fell upon them — silence unbroken 
save by the loud beating of two hearts. Through 
long, blissful minutes he held her close, his 
lips now and then touching her forehead or 
burying themselves in the waxen softness of 
her cheek. Time and the world were not for 
those two. From heart to heart there ran the 
subtle sweetness which can transfigure min- 
utes into eternitievS — ^make the narrowest con- 
fines as gorgeously wide as the universe. Love, 
the vital root of all that is, had sprung up for 
each, at the glance of an eye into a rare and 
]>erfect fullness of blossom, whose breath was 
the true breath of heaven. 

By and by Selene stirred a little and looked 
up into his face. ^Tt is all so strange, so won- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


39 


derful!^^ she said. ^^How can it all have hap- 
pened, when we had been passing each other 
by all these years and years 

^^Love is the crown of mystery as of bless- 
ing,’’ Brewster said, thoughtfully. ‘‘I have 
asked myself the same question over and over. 
The one possible answer is the psydhological 
moment. Something awoke your soul — it looked 
out of your eyes — and my soul recognized it. 
Darling, I hope you will never look again as 
you did just then, when my heart went down 
in the dust at your feet.” 

^^Indeed! Why? I wish I might look so al- 
ways — for you,” Selene said, a little wistfully. 
Brewster laughed and kissed her again. ^^If 
you could,” he said, ^^then I should be forced 
to turn Turk, and keep you forever veiled and 
behind barred doors. I cannot bear even to 
think of another man seeing in you what I 
saw — and being roused by it to something like 
the same emotion.” 

^^There is no danger,” Selene said, simply. 
suppose I am a little bit good looking — but no- 
body beside you ever found me beautiful. I am 
glad I am not outright ugly — ugliness of every 
sort is such a mistake.’’ 

^Wet — you would be ugly, disfigure yourself, 
for my sake?” Brewster said, not as though 
asking a question, but after the manner of one 
stating a fact. Selene sat up and looked 
thoughtful a minute, then said, slowly: ^Wes! 
T would do even that to give you peace of mind. 


40 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


But jou will never need to ask it. I doubt if 
anybody else will ever give me more than a 
casual look.’’ 

‘^How very modest we are, all at once,” 
Brewster said, laughing softly. ^^Selene, Se- 
lene, are you playing innocent, or have you 
truly been so wrapt in your own worlds of 
faery you do not know?” 

^^Know what?” Selene asked, leaning a little 
back and locking her hands behind her dusky 
head. 

^^That you are one of the most dangerously 
beautiful creatures in all the world,” he said. 
^^Once a man begins to perceive it, he has no 
chance whatever. It is not of the outflashing 
type, which stuns — and warns. Instead, it 
steals unawares upon you, with the softest, the 
most subtle allurements. Back in the dark 
ages you might have been hanged for witch- 
craft. Do you know that, sweetheart? If you 
do not, learn it now and walk warily in the 
knowledge. I may not be patient always with 
this enchantment. Some day I may try you 
with bell, book and candle, to see if it be true 
Christian woman’s magic, or if you will fly 
away in a flash of sulphurous flame.” 

Selene gave him a happy glance — bird-like 
and liquid — as she answered: ^^If I practiced 
the black art there are other people and things 
that would disappear — not my poor self.” 

me! I did not dream you were so vindic- 
tive,” Brewster said, smiling. ^Tell me, who 
are those people and what are those things?” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


41 


‘‘The people — let me see!^’ Selene said, re- 
flectively. “They are not so very many; only 
Squire Waite, who is so hard on the poor folk 
in his mill cottages — you will admit Barcelona 
could very well spare him — ^and Tobe Rickets, 
who breaks up birds’ nests, and chases home- 
less dogs, and — well, yes, and Mrs. Witherby. 
Perhaps I ought not to hate her, but I do. It 
gives me a chill to pass her on the street since 
she insulted me so that night.” 

‘T see you would make a discriminating re- 
former,” Brewster said, again laughing. ^^Bar- 
celona would be a better place to live in if you 
were its benevolent despot. Go on; tell me 
about the things. Which of them would you 
eliminate first?” 

“The library — so I could not possibly have 
to keep it,” Selene answered, promptly. ^^You 
can never know the weariness of it — the rou- 
tine, the endless questions people ask, the mis- 
takes they make, and the refiex ones I make. 
Books are good things, but, like women, I think, 
the}' should have their owm homes and be kept 
forever in them.” 

^‘Poor, precious sweetheart!” he said, lifting 
her hand to his cheek. ^‘Her slavery is almost 
ended. I will not let that go on a day longer 
than I can help?” 

A heavy, halting step sounded upon the nar- 
row flagged walk, and a fumbling hand pulled 
the asthmatic bell. Selene sprang up, but sat 
down precipitate. Mrs. Barber had opened the 


42 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


door; she heard the caller stump inside and 
pass on to the sitting room. The next minute 
there was a tap at the door, and Mrs. Barber 
said, not looking within: ^^Excuse me, Selene; 
Squire Waite is here. He says he must see 
you a minute upon urgent business.’’ 

^^Be sure you come back soon,” Brewster said 
at the door. He had walked to it with his arm 
about Selene’s waist. She turned and held up 
her lips for a kiss, smiling and blushing like a 
rose in June. As the door shut behind her she 
shivered violently. For a half-minute she stood 
still, her breath coming fast. Then she hurried 
across the narrow hall and on to the sitting- 
room hearth. Squire Waite stood upon it, fin- 
gering his hat with heavily gloved fingers, his 
back to the fire and his legs contentiously wide 
apart. He was a trustee of the library. Its 
establishment, indeed, was largely his work, 
though but little of his money had gone into 
it. Still he had much to say in its management, 
chiefly because, having retired from active busi- 
ness, he had heaps of time to potter with and 
j)ry into small affairs. He had resisted all Mrs. 
Barber’s hospitable solicitations to seat him- 
self. Selene knew that meant he had something 
disagreeable to say. He greeted her with a 
smile, that changed almost to a snarl as his eye 
took in the effect of her picturesque costume. 
His mouth hardened, his glance lost its furtive 
droop. He held up his head severely, and said, 
with almost no pretense of salutation: 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


43 


thought I^d better come and tell you right off, 
Miss Selene. The trustees had a meeting to- 
night and resolved on some changes. Quite 
considerable changes, ye may say. Fact is, they 
amount to this: Yereafter the hours^ll be from 
four in the aft^noon to nine at night. Ye see, 
it'S mainly for the mill folks, and they ain^t got 
daylight to spare. Now, you^^e give so far — 
well, we^ll say — middling sa/tisf action, but we 
made up our minds tonight that in the fuchyer, 
with men and boys coming in, and all that, the 
librarian had ought to be a man — ’’ 

quite agree with you,^’ Selene said, clearly. 
^^Have you come to give me notice, or shall I 
stay away at once?’’ 

Notice, of course,” the Squire said, be- 
ginning to shuffle his feet. ^^The new hours 
don’t begin for a month, and then, too, we’ve 
got to find our man.” 


CHAPTER V. 


Selene! What shall we do?^’ Mrs. Barber 
asked with white, dry lips as Squire Waite shuf- 
fled away. Selene flung up her head. She had 
fighting blood, a hot Highland strain, coming 
true and undiluted from a Scotch great grand- 
father, who had fought for bonny Prince 
Charlie. Besides, she was too happy to feel any 
sting or arrow of earthly existence. She looked 
straight into the Are a minute, then said, her 
lips curling faintly: ^^Do! We shall do excel- 
lently, mother! I was never quite so glad of 
anything as to be rid of my old-man-of-the-sea. 
I shall easily find something better. Of course, 
I cannot help but feel contempt for the way 
these people have managed. If they had said 
a word to me I would have told them I thought 
their plan a good one, and would gladly make 
way for the man of their choice. But to meet 
in secret! O, how I hate creeping, crawling 
things! But never mind, dear! We will not 
waste breath or lose sleep over them. Run 
away to bed and let me bring you a cup of hot 
milk. I dare say Mr. Brewster will be going 
soon — then I can lock up.’’ 

^‘Brewster! Is it Earle Brewster?” Mrs. Bar- 
ber almost gasped. ^^Selene, darling child; be- 
ware! O, do have a care. You know how he is 
situated — and even if he broke his promise his 
mother would never make you welcome.” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


45 


^^Motlier/ mother, what a disconsolate little 
person you are! Do not borrow trouble! Do not, 
I entreat/^ Selene said, putting her arms about 
the elder women, and hiding the wrinkled face 
in her breast. ^^As yet I cannot tell you — any- 
thing, but this you must believe: Whatever 
happens to me, and many things may happen, 
I shall never forget that I was John’s wife — 
or that he thought me good enough to be your 
daughter. If I am good enough for that, then 
I am equal to anything. Only love me, dear, 
and trust — then all will be well.” 

Mrs. Barber began to sob — dry, choking sobs 
that made Selene shiver. For a minute she 
stood irresolute, then gently pushed the weep- 
ing woman down into an easy chair and turned 
toward the door. Mrs. Barber clutched her 
hand and said, brokenly: ^^Bear with me — a 
little while — daughter. All my thought — all. — 
my — care, is — for you.” 

know it. Do not cry, mother! Do not! You 
break my heart,” Selene said, lightly stroking 
the bowed head. It lifted beneath her hand. 
Mrs. Barber got to her feet, and said, almost 
steadily: ^^Go back now; back to your — lover,” 
choking a little over the word. ^^Forgive me 
if I have saddened you when you were so 
happy. Good nig'ht. I am going to pray God 
to keep and guard my child.” 

A lump rose in Selene’s throat. She could 
not speak, but with a quick^ close kiss hurried 
away. She found Brewster pacing the parlor 


46 


AS IT HAI^PENED. 


back and forth like a caged animal. ^‘You have 
been gone eternities/’ he said; then, after a 
sharp look, ^^and you have left yourself be- 
hind., What has happened? Tell me! Quick!” 

While she told him his face cleared magic- 
ally. ^^That is good news — the very best,” he 
said. “I was wondering how I could end all 
that. It is quite out of the question — your 
staying there, where you would be the prey of 
curious eyes and gossiping tongues.” 

“I hate both, but have no reason to fear 
either,” Selene said, a little proudly. ^^Please 
th(" good Lord, I never shall have. I myself am 
glad of the change — onl}^ 1 wish it had not 
come quite so unexpectedly. Mother is dis- 
turbed over it. I can see that very plainly. Not 
so much for the money, though I do not deny 
it has been a help, but because she thinks it 
shows I have made enemies — ” 

^^What if you have? Leave me to take care 
of them,’' Brew^ster said, slipping his arms 
about her. Selene shrank ever so slightly, and 
said, turning away her head: ^^She thinks it is 
because of you I have made them. I am not 
sure but that she is right. What do you say?” 

^That she is right,” Earle said, promptly. 
^^Mrs. Witherby — but there is no need to ex- 
plain. You saw and heard her that night — suf- 
fice it that Mrs. Witherby is potent in Barce- 
lona; likewise she has a tongue. It is partly 
my fault, all this, so you must' leave to me 
wholly the remedying of things. I provoked 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


4T 


her. After I had left you I went back. Mother 
Wftherby took me to task for my absence — 
rated me, in fact, as though I had been her 
lackey. Where have you been, Earle ?> she 
asked as she caught sight of me. thought I 
could depend on you to help me to the last.^ 
^O,’ said I, have been helping you. I could not 
possibly let young Mrs. Barber go away feeling 
that she had got into a crowd where not one 
soul had the least comprehension of good breed- 
ing.’ I said it right out loud, too, where a dozen 
people heard it. As she could not discipline me 
for my insolence, she has thought up this way 
of taking her revenge on you. The Christian 
virtues as practiced by the Witherby standard 
are apt to make a normal and natural man sigh 
for a few un-Christian ones.” . 

understand,” Selene said, with a soft, slow 
smile. ^^But are you sure, quite sure, it is not to 
spite Mrs. Witherby that you are — here?” 

^^You are worse than a heathen and a heretic 
to even suspect such a thing,” Brewster re- 
torted. ^Wou must do penance for your sins. 
Sit dowm; no, not there — 'Over in that dark 
high-backed chair, and let me look at you with- 
out speaking for full ten minutes.” 

^There was silence in heaven for the space 
of half an hour,’ ” Selene quoted, mischievous- 
ly. I see you are bent on finding out whether 
or no, as some people claim, that text proves 
that there are no women there.” 

^Will you be quiet — very quiet?” Brewster 


48 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


demanded, seating her in the chair and placing 
her arms to suit himself. As he laid one of 
them down he stooped and ki^ed the round, 
blue-veined wrist, then wheeled and almost ran 
to the farthest window, where he stood for 
some minutes staring blankly at the mirk out- 
side. AYhen he came back his face was set. 

‘‘I shall have to get awaj^,’^ he said, impa- 
tiently, glancing at his watch. ^^All I can say 
now is — trust me. Do nothing, say nothing, be- 
lieve nothing- — until I come again.-' 

In a flash he was out of the room, the house, 
leaving Selene a figure of disquiet beside the 
fading fire. 

Half an hour later she was in her own small 
room looking intently at her image in the old- 
fashioned, black-framed mirror above her 
equally old-fashioned chest of drawers. It had 
been her grandmother’s and was one of the 
few bits remaining to her from the home she 
scarcely remenbered. She had played with its 
brasses ever since she could toddle. The mir- 
ror had pictured her in her first long dress, 
wuth her hair put up to mask her extreme 
youth. It had held her image — a bride — and 
the image showed her the same face framed 
sombrely in widow’s weeds. Somehow it 
seemed to her a companion. She w^as glad that 
she could look into its friendly depths and see 
for the first time her countenance transfigured 
and love illumined. 

but I am pretty — now,” she said to her- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


49 


self, smiliug and lifting (her round white arms 
so their whiteness framed her face. never 
thought so before. I am sure, indeed, I was 
never so. It is the inner light — the reflected 
glorj. Earle, my darling, how can I wait to 
see you? I wonder will you come tomorrow'. 
You canont be so cruel as to wait until next 
day. I wonder w^hat would happen if — if you 
did not come at all? O God, spare me that 
trial. If I am idolatrous of Thy creature, give 
iiiy idolatry some other punishment. 

A strange and sudden heaviness fell upon 
her. It w'as not the heaviness of sleep, yet as 
soon as her head touched the pillow her eyelids 
dropped over her eyes, and her tense breathing 
became soft and full. She w^as sleeping — yet 
aw’ake. Gradually she lost sense of her sur- 
roundings, or, rather, they seemed to melt and 
change w'holly. The old mirror lost its black 
frame and changed to one set in ivory and sup- 
ported upon rods of beaten gold. The room 
itself had spread and ispread until she could 
barely distinguish upon its distant w^alls the 
shimmer of rich stuffs changing through every 
tender hue. Now' they shone pink as the dawm, 
now’^ dusk as the twilight, now sea-green as 
summer w'aves, or of the radiant blue of sum- 
mer skies. Suffusions of gray and purple and 
rosy lavender played over the deeper tints. 
Now and again the gleam of a jew'el — ruby, 
amethyst, emerald, sapphire, chrysophrase — 
deft as with a swmrd thrust the changing hues. 


50 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


The jewels were thick toward the ceiling. It 
was of vapour-white sfudded magically, with 
little scintillaiit stars. Underneath them 
everywhere mist-white draperies waved and 
hovered in softly scented breezes. They fell 
down like the foam of fairy cataracts upon a 
floor of white marble overlaid with rich rugs. 
A magnificent tiger skin, the head glaring as 
though alive, lay in the foreground. Upon it 
there was a chair, throne-shaped, and all over 
gold, with a golden footstool before it. A shad- 
owy figure stood back of it, with arm outheld 
as though to place upon the head of whoever 
might sit upon the throne a crown of thorns, 
massy and rusted, and dripping at the points 
with blood. 

Chilled and shaking with horror, Selene saw 
herself in the golden mirror advance toward 
the chair. Her image was robed in the same 
mist-white of the draperies. It seemed to be 
translucent. She could see clearly as it passed 
the mysterious flickering lights playing upon 
the tinted walls beyond. Slowly it encircled 
about the throne, now^ advancing, now retreat- 
ing, and always the eyes of the dusk figure 
holding the crown of thorns, burned and blazed, 
though it made no movement of invitation. 

No sound came, but Selene was somehow 
aware of the w^ords: ^^Enter in. The kingdom 
is ready. It is the kingdom of soul and sense."' 
She was conscious, too, of a mad yearning to 
sit in the seat and wear the crown of thorns. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


51 


pressing them down until they dripped afresh 
with her blood. The lights grew and strength- 
ened. All the intolerable splendors pressed 
upon her, almost overwhelming her. She could 
net take away her eyes, but lay trembling, 
panting, wild to spring up and claim the crown, 
3^et somehow mysteriousl}' withlheld. The 
transparent otherself began to fade, to draw 
back, as though coming into herself. She gave 
a little cry, and raised her eyes to the dark, 
hovering figure. It stood iiow for the first time 
full in the flooding light. It smiled grimly; its 
eyes were full of brooding fire. They seemed 
to pierce her very soul, to draw her in spite of 
herself, away from life, from earth, from com- 
prehension. Looking into them she gave a 
wild scream. In their fire she had at last rec- 
ognized the soul of her lover, Earle Brewster. 

The shrill cry broke her trance. She sprang 
up in bed, and put out her arms imploringly. 
For a minute she could not breathe, could not 
speak, could not even shape a mental prayer. 
Her face ran cold sweat, her hands were 
clinched, every nerve and muscle in her vibrat- 
ing as in the relaxing of deadly strain. 

She fell back on the pillow sobbing wildly. 
^‘Earle! Earle she moaned. ^^You called me! 
I tried to come. I do not dread the crown of 
thorns if you plant them on my brow. O, my 
love, my life, what does it mean? What can 
it mean?^^ 


CHAPTER VI. 


A man who prevails against any set foe is 
often conquered by his environment. Earle 
Brewster had in large measure the instinct of 
dominance, of leadership. He felt, and truly, 
that no man, no aggregation of men, indeed, in 
all Barcelona could stand successfully against 
him. In local matters he spoke, and it was 
done; he commanded, and it stood fast. This 
was partly by inheritance. His father had vir- 
tually held the town in the hollow of his hand. 
The son had been wise enough to recognize 
very early in his career that the indispensable 
condition of continuing leadership is the abil- 
ity to direct the current of prevailing impulse 
rather than to contravene it. 

That is to say, he knew that Barcelona ac- 
cepted him, deferred to him, chiefly because of 
this unspoken, intuitive conviction that Barce- 
lona at bottom controlled him. He was its 
strongest man intellectually, financially, polit- 
ically, yet his strength was as weakness com- 
pared to the might of its own mass. It had a 
subdued yet solid pride in his riches, his at- 
tainments, his social eminence, even his neces- 
sary frailties — the decent and well-masked 
transgressions of a gentleman. He was a sort 
of radical sign, expressing to the common- 
wealth at large the type of Barcelona’s achieve- 
ments and civilization. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


53 


Self love in the sense of small vanities, he 
had none. But he did love very dearly the 
quality of consequence he perceived in himself. 
Until he fell under Selene’s sway it had been 
the keenest and most vital of his emotions — 
all the more keen and vital that it was unac- 
knowledged. He found himself now in a curi- 
ous, an irritating position. Fate had precipi- 
tated a crisis, and he was inadequate. A bet- 
ter man, or a worse, would have met and mas- 
tered it. 

He loved Selene so madly, so entirely, the 
bare thought of life without her was appalling 
desolation. But how bring her into his life, 
held and bound as he was to the living and 
dead! His mother, he knew, would not openly 
break with him, but she would draw aside, and 
look unutterable things in a fashion entirely 
maddening. Then there was his little child! 
A girl, he held, was very largely what her 
home made her. He had no right to give this 
girl an atmosphere of frost, and heart-burn- 
ings, and perpetual silent strife. Clearly, he 
was answerable to his child, even more than 
to his mother — or even to her mother. 

Her mother! He always stopped there in his 
tumultuous meditations. The dead woman’s 
eyes seemed to swim before him — the mouth he 
remembered so well to smile whimsical scorn. 
He could feel the thought back of them — satiric 
thought — of his perfidy. Constance had not 
been of an exalted soul, but she had read 


54 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


human nature shrewdly, especially masculine 
human nature. Even when he made her the 
])romise she had smiled — as she smiled in his 
mind now — and said, faintly: am sure you 

will keep that. — at least six months.’’ 

Outside his family was his world. There 
he must face open revolt. Selene would never 
ht into it. Her nature, like her figure, was too 
large, and simple, and freely natural, to sub- 
mit to the crampings of its narrow conven- 
tions. For, though the great w^orld has its 
conventions — they are, indeed, as widespread 
as the human race — those conventions are airy 
and elastic compared with the rigid regula- 
tions of aspiring provincial places. Selene 
had been always in Barcelona, but not of it. 
She was past the formative stage now, and 
though she did not wholly lack adaptation, it 
was idle to hope that she could so far change 
herself as to accept its straight restrictions and 
devious enlargements. 

Barcelona likewise would be as far from ac- 
cepting her. More, it would resent bitterly 
her elevation to the ranks of its leaders. Polit- 
ically, it w^as, as a community, intensely re- 
publican, but the republicanism stopped short 
of social life. There, if lines of class and caste 
lacked open and verbal recognition, they were, 
none the less, strictly drawm and maintained. 
True, the lines ran sinuously. It would have 
puzzled the keenest student of social condi- 
tions to say why they included certain indi- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


55 


viduals, and left others — to the casual lay 
mind much more desirable — out in the cold. 
Money, though a very considerable factor, was 
not indispensable, any more than it was a talis- 
man — an open sesame. 

Selene was of the excluded — just why no- 
body could say. Her mother had been a farm- 
er’s daughter, her father a promising young in- 
ventor. Both had died when she w^as a tiny 
child, leaving her to the care of John Barber 
and his mother. By birth and blood the Bar- 
bers were entitled to hold up their heads with 
the best, yet, what with bereavement and mis- 
fortune, they had let themselves get in a way 
of being overlooked. Though town gossip was 
keenly cognizant of them and their affairs, the 
town’s invitation lists knew them not. John’s 
marriage had evoked comment enough — his 
death so quickly following — something ap- 
proaching sympathy for those he left behind. 
Out of the sympathy, and certain nebulous 
stirring in the breasts of their fellow parish- 
ioners in St. Ignatius, there had come the of- 
fer of the place at the library. Selene had 
taken it when her year of mourning ended, all 
unconscious that in the taking she had put 
herself farther than ever outside the social 
pale. It set her, indeed, very near the level of 
the mill girls, who were well understood to be 
nearly on a par with Barcelona’s kitchen 
maids. 

All these things and many more seethed 


56 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


through Earle Ih'ewster's brain as he tossed 
and writhed in bed on the night after he had 
left Selene. He was not a profane man, yet 
for hours he muttered curses — upon life and 
lifers hamperings of circumstances. He could 
see no clean way out — yet such a way there 
must be. As the city clocks struck four he 
clinched his hands, crying out: ^^Damn it! I 
will have her! She is mine! She shall stay 
mine. The wdiole world shall know it before 
another night!’' 

Just then someone rapped violently on his 
door — Perkins, his little girl’s nurse, called 
through it: ^Tf you please, Mr. Brewster, 
madam, your mother, has a bad turn. She 
says will you please get up. I have already 
sent for the doctor.’’ 

^Tt is my heart, Earle — I have been afraid of 
it this long time,” his mother said, brokenly, 
when he had rushed to her bedside. ^No, there 
is no danger — now,” answering the question in 
his eyes. am better, but I do not want an- 
other attack — if a doctor can keep me from it.” 

Soon the doctor came bustling in — keen-eyed 
and cold under a suave, professional exterior. 
After half an hour, which had seemed to Earle 
a year, the doctor drew him aside to say: 
^‘So far the mischief is not serious. The dan- 
ger lies in a recurrence of the attack. If we 
can guard against that for a couple of years 
there will be no danger at all. You must keep 
your mother quiet and tranquil. Any exertion. 


AS IT HAl^PENED. 


57 


any excitement, may cost her her life, or, if not 
that, her health. Once let this functional 
weakness of the heart become well established 
and she will live in the very shadow of death.’^ 

Earle nodded silently, his lips compressed to 
a bloodless line. The doctor went on : ^Tn such 
cases care is much more than medicine — in 
fact, it is the only medicine worth mention. I 
have prescribed a mild tonic and light exer- 
cise. After a little I advise change of scene. 
Nothing violent, you understand — a little jour- 
ney by easy stages and, if possible, in the so- 
ciety of friends.’^ 

Again Earle nodded. He felt the toils tight- 
ening about him. It was his mother against 
his sweetheart — life against love. All his life 
he had been imperiously spoiled, impatient of 
delay, overriding whatever came between him 
and his momentary desire. He could no more 
change his emotional constitution than a leop- 
ard can change his spots. Though he w^as not 
unfilial, he had never felt for his mother the 
absorbingly tender devotion that is the true 
crown of motherhood; He loved her with a 
sedate, respectful fondness, that would make 
her loss a pain, yet miss her scarcely a month. 
What he did love supremely was his ideal of 
himself. The ideal would sulfer irretrievably 
if, by any action of its flesh and blood simalu- 
erum, his mother came to harm. 

All this lay inarticulate in his consciousness 
as he bowed the doctor away. He had said. 


58 


AS IT KAPPENED. 


speaking evenly, ‘with just a shade of hardness: 
‘^Depend on it, your patient shall be guarded 
more vigilantly than I would guard my own 

Then he flung himself down upon the sofa in 
the hall outside her door and slept heavily 
until the sun was high. It was almost noon, 
in fact, when he awoke and sat up rubbing his 
eyes. Voices came to him from within — his 
mother^s speaking in almost the usual strength, 
and Mrs. Witherby’s running nimbly along 
the whole gamut of town gossip. 

assure you it is quite true,’’ she was say- 
ing. ^^That Barber creature is dangerous — the 
sooner she is forced to leave Barcelona the 
better for all of us. As long as she was con- 
tent to be nobody I tolerated, I even encour- 
aged her, for that poor old mother-in-law’s 
sake. You know I have very few mistakes 
upon my conscience, but I made one almost 
criminal when I let her appear in the Proces- 
sion. Earle is partly to blame for that — he in- 
sisted there was something oriental in her 
look. Because the stage setting was so hand- 
some and people insisted upon seeing her three 
times, she has grown quite insufferable. My 
dear, it would make you ill to see her airs and 
graces, not to mention her clothes. It is posi- 
tively impious the w^ay she sets herself up 
above the fashions. Why, she told me the 
other day she would rather wear what was 
becoming than what was stylish. Did you ever 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


59 


hear such vanity? Setting her own looks 
against the dictates of progress? And even 
that is not the worst. I saw Squire Waite as 
I came on. He says when he went last night 
to give her notice she was entertaining com- 
pany in the parlor — some factory hand, I dare 
say — and came out to see him with some white 
thing on, long and full, and tagged about, with 
hanging sleeves, and he couldn’t for his life 
say whether it was a wrapper or a nightgown. 
He quite agrees with me that we cannot be rid 
of her too quickly if the church is to be kept 
pure and the young saved from evil example.” 

^Wou are too hard on her, I think,” Mrs. 
Brewster said, more mildly. ^There is noth- 
ing worse about the woman — at least, in my 
opinion — than underbreeding, and for that she 
is hardly answerable. She does not, I admit, 
fit into our life here. If I might advise her it 
would be to go to a city. She has, I think, 
something of what are called Bohemian in- 
stincts. She would, I dare say, be better ofi 
and ever so much happier among people of her 
own kind.” 

Earle dropped down, pretending to sleep 
again, his hands clinching hard. Every word 
had struck upon the raw. What these two said 
all his world would say, magnified a hundred 
fold. He would have been more hopeful had 
his mother joined fully in Mrs. Witherby’s 
railing. She might recover from a prejudice 
and pass from anger into admiration, but noth- 


60 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


ing under heaven, neither time nor tide, nor 
earthquake, he well knew, could ever move 
her from a position of tolerant and excusing 
patronage once she had assumed it. 

Presently his little daughter came pattering 
by. She stopped at’ sight of his figure, re- 
cumbent and disheveled, and said, in an accent 
of serene contempt: ^Tapa is disgusting — 
asleep all in a lump. I did not know’ he could 
look so common.’’ 

It w^as the last straw. He got up and fled 
precipitately to his own room. Twm hours 
later, refreshed by bath and breakfast, with a 
flow^er in the button hole of his handsome top 
coat, he sprang into his light carriage and 
drove aw’ay, seemingly a gallant and an en- 
viable figure, yet with that in his heart and 
oppressing his brain which might have made 
the poorest contented man feel him an object 
of pity. , 

He drove far and fast — out into the bleak 
country, unlovely in the raggedness of the first 
spring thaw’. In the calendar March was a 
spring month, but Barcelona could always 
count upon it for a supplemental winter. The 
month was nearly past. Until that, day it had 
given no hint of mildness. Sunrise had brought 
a southerly wind; before noon the sky was 
overcast, yet the loadside ditches ran brimful, 
every patch of bare eari:h had become a muddy 
blotch, and the snow’ banks w^ere turning rap- 
idly to slush. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


61 


Brewster drove alone. He had felt that even 
the groom’s silent presence would harass him. 
He sent his horses straight in the teeth of the 
wind and went at a slapping pace until he no- 
ticed foam gathering in their flanks. Then he 
wheeled them about, set his teeth and said 
through them: ^^It is the only way. It must, 
it shall come to pass!” 


CHAPTEK YII. 


^^Sweetheart, sweetheart, tell me that you 
missed me! — that your soul cried out for me 
day and night, even as mine did for you!’’ 

Earle Brewster said it, kissing Selene be- 
tween every word. He held her in his arms, 
her face upon his breast, her eyes, full of the 
softest, happy light, looking up into his. Again 
and again he strained her to his heart, mur- 
muring in her ear : ^^Sweetheart! Kose of love! 
Say you cannot live without me!” 

had to live without you — a whole, long 
week,” Selene said, gently; ^^but do not think 
I reproach you!” she hurried on. heard — 

Dr. Ware told me — about your mother. You 
were right to stay close so long as she needed 
you.” 

^^Nobody can ever need me as I need you,” 
Earle answered. my sweetheart, it is cruel, 
piteously cruel, for any human creature to be 
so bound up in another as I find myself in 
you.” 

^Wou are quite sure?” Selene asked, the note 
of interrogation drowned in happy confidence. 
She was thrilling through and through — adrift 
on a flood of ecstacy that swept her beyond 
connected thought or purpose. She was cer- 
tain of only one thing — that was, she was alive 
to her finger tips with the vital pulsings of 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


63 


love. Doubts, misgivings, apprehensions, all 
had fled far away at the sound of his voice. 
She had waited tensely throughout the seven 
days, feeding her heart upon husks of memory 
and wheat of full trust. Now that the trust 
was justified she did not try to weigh and rea- 
son — she was quite content to love. 

am sure — of everything,’^ Earle said, con- 
fidently, almost, she thought, defiantly, fling- 
ing up his head. ^^Sure, we love each other; 
sure, we were made for each other; surest, we 
can — never marry each other.” 

Selene slipped heavily from his hold and 
fell prone upon the floor, almost at his feet. 
As he knelt beside her trying to raise her to 
his bosom she shrank from him, moaning 
faintly and i)utting her hands over her eyes. 
‘^Say that again — please,” she whispered after 
a little. want to be sure I heard it — right.” 

can never be husband and wife,” Earle 
repeatedly, doggedly. ^^But what of that? Mar- 
riage is for life — love like ours is for eternity.” 

know I am not good enough, or beautiful 
enough for you,” Selene said, tears raining 
over her face, her bosom heaving with a chok- 
ing sob. ^^Nobody is quite that — but — but — 
it was cruel in you to — to make me believe you 
felt so.” 

^^Good enough! God! Selene, sweetheart! 
Do you not know you are too good, too grand, 
too beautiful for me — for any man that ever 
lived?” Brewster cried. ^^It is not that — you 


64 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


must know — you must have known all along 
liow it is with me. I am not free. I have made 
a promise to the dead. As the law has it, I am 
held in mortmain — ’’ 

Selene broke from his hold and covered her 
face with her hands. He was silent, breathing 
heavily after that break in his speech. ^^Be a 
little reasonable, sweetheart,’’ he hurried on. 
‘^You cannot dream that I shall ever give you 
up — for anything dead or living. I need you! 
God alone knows how bitterly. The manhood 
in me cries out for you, your softness, your 
sweet eyes — ^ah, how sweet they are! — all — all 
your glorious womanhod as its own comple- 
ment. You must be mine! You shall! If you 
will not give me my sweetheart, I shall go 
mad.” 

^A"ou are mad already,” Selene said, weep- 
ing bitterly. what have I ever done? 

What have you ever seen in me that.you should 
say in one breath ^you cannot marry me’ and 
in the next ^you shall be*mine?’ ” 

^Wou have done nothing but be your own 
sweet self — the fairest woman under the sun,” 
Earle cried, catching her to him in spite of her. 

sweetheart,” he hurried on. ^^Hear reason 
— or reasoned unreason! Listen and you will 
not try to gainsay me. There is no taking back 
a promise from the dead. Answer me now, on 
your soul, have you never thought of this thing 
which stands between?” 

thought life was stronger than death — 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


65 


and love than both/^ Selene whispered. it 
seemed dark, I trusted you — ^you could make 
it all light, my heart said. Even when mother 
tried to warn me, I would not hear a word. 
Forgive me if I am wrong — ^but it seemed to 
me, if this promise was so sacred, so inviolable, 
it must have stood between us and any words 
of love. Answer me — is that dead woman 
still supreme in your soul? Is it only the mor- 
tal, the material man, that has come to me 
whispering a love of the flesh only?’^ 

^^No! A hundred times no!^^ Brewster cried; 
then, a little thoughtfully, loved my wife 
madly — until she was my wife. After that 
there was a change. We seemed to grow to- 
gether, yet apart. I cannot hope to make you 
understand it, but today I love her memory de- 
voutly — next to you, my sweetheart — yet if she 
were living here in the flesh I should infallibly 
hate her.’’ 

^^She did not love you — she would never have 
left you bound and lonely,” Selene cried, a lit- 
tle spitefully. Brewster laughed, rather grim- 
ly. ^^She loved me. I am certain of that,” he 
said; ^^but it was with a possessive love. She 
never cared what I did — it would not in the 
least have disturbed her to know I had a sweet- 
heart, but she wanted the world to recognize 
me as hers for all time. I have thought some- 
times that she loved me with all her soul and 
almost hated me with her body.” 

Selene was crying quietly. Brewster lifted 


66 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


her face and wiped away the tears, saying: 
‘^Sweetheart, you love me, body and soul — even 
as I love you. To win you, if need be, I could 
defy death, and the world, and the devil. But 
since you love me, you will help me over a 
hard place by seeing the stones and pitfalls 
clearly and not thrusting me into them. Even 
if I were free, there are many reasons why an 
open union is impossible. I cannot murder my 
mother. To make you my wife would be the 
same as to put a knife in her heart. Then you 
yourself- — do you think I have no care to see 
you happy? I must live in Barcelona. Fate 
has tied me here. If you came into my life 
the atmosphere of it would stifle you. You 
were born for the open, for sunshine, for love 
and happiness. It is hard enough for me, 
with all a man’s outlets and distractions, to 
bear this cramped and narrowing social at- 
mosphere. You, who are a hundred times 
more generous of mold and impulse, would flt 
into the cage I should have to set you in about 
as a wild dove would flt a canary’s brazen 
prison. If only you will be brave, and strong, 
and trustful, we may make for ourselves a lit- 
tle foretaste of heaven. We can love, live, die 
for each other, and our world be no whit the 
wiser. Say that it shall be so, sweetheart! 
We can be happy, so happy, it would be sinful 
to put it aside.” 

Selene got up unsteadily. In a mocking 
flash there came to her a happening for the 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


67 


day. A mill girl had by mistake got out a 
volume of Shakespeare. In the noon recess 
she ran in with it, her face a very moral of dis- 
gust, to say, as she slammed the book down 
open upon the desk: thought you had only 

decent works here. Look at that?’’ with her 
stubbed finger indicating a couplet on the page 
of a historical play. It was Elizabeth Wood- 
ville’s speech in answer to King Edward’s 
rough wooing — 

“Although I am too low to be your queen, 

I^m much too high to be your concubine.’* 

She had taken the book, with a sort of dull 
impatience, and replaced it with a well- 
thumbed romance. The girl’s mutterings had 
worn upon her nerves. Now, in letters of fire, 
the woman’s answer stood out upon the page of 
memory. Almost unconsciously she repeated 
it aloud. As Earle caught the import of the 
words he frowned heavily. 

^^Listen to me — and reason, Selene,” he said, 
standing up straight and indexible before her. 
^^This is no question of that kind. You know 
that as well as I. But look things squarely in 
the face. We love each other. Granted? You 
nod your head. If we separate the result is — 
misery. If we marry, the result is greater mis- 
ery — if greater misery there can be. I have 
not spoken this thing lightly. My God! Do 
you think if there were any other way I would 
have risked bringing even one tear to your 


68 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


eyes? Give me yourself, your precious self, 
and no wife ever had a husband half so true 
as I will prove myself to be to the queen of my 
heart — ’’ 

Selene, too, had risen. Now she moved 
away, like one stunned. He stopped short and 
caught her hand, asking: ^What does that 
mean? You are not going to leave me?’’ 

^^Yes!” she said, simply. ^^And I think I — 
I will say good-bye now. Tomorrow is my last 
day — with the books, you know — after that we 
— I think we shall go away.” 

^ Where?” Earle demanded, catching her 
hands and holding her fast. am not quite 
sure,” Selene said, still speaking in that 
stunned whisper. ^^The world is very big. I — 
I hope we shall find a place somewhere in it — 
and work.” 

^Work! Selene! Sweetheart! Do you dream 
how you torture me?” Earle cried, catching 
her in his arms. ^^You work, my queen, while 
I loll in idle plenty? Selene, Selene, if for 
nothing else, for your own sake stay and let 
me take care of you, and your life shall be one 
of luxury and ease.” 

^^The world is not full of ravening wolves,” 
Selene said, with a wan smile. 

^^No — but of men — which are very much the 
same,” Earle said, impatiently. ^^Of men who 
will look on you to lust after you, depend on 
that, Selene — of men who will scruple at noth- 
ing to bend you to their wills. You — you 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


69 


would tempt a St. Anthony, when you have 
that meek, appealing look, or when you fling 
up your head imperially, as though bidding 
Fate to do its worst. Take me, sweetheart, if 
for nothing but your watch dog. No wolf shall 
come near you while I am on guard. You are 
not wanton, nor vain by nature; you do not 
crave show and glitter. Let me make your 
life a long dream of quiet and beauty. O ! it can 
be done and the big, prying world none the 
wiser. You shall stand before it as spotless as 
the snow.’^ 

^^That signifies nothing,’’ Selene said, proud- 
ly. ^Tf — if I could bring myself to be — to do 
what you ask, it would be, not for what you 
could give me, or save me from — but only be- 
cause I love you so.” 

what a wicked, wicked sweetheart! She 
wants to make out that I am one of the wolves. 
I have not gone down into hell itself and 
wrestled with twice seven devils beqause I love 
her a hundred times too well to leave her. O, 
no! It is just because I am a man — and am in 
the ravening mood.” 

did not say that,” Selene said, slowly; 
^^but there is truth in it, even if I did not. You 
think you will always love me — that I grant. 
You think, honestly, that you will keep me in 
honor, and hold me as high as good, pure 
women deserve to be held. But I fear, I fear, 
I know you best. It is desire which speaks 
now. Once you had tired of me, once you had 
seen a fresher face — ” 


70 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


^^Hush! I will not hear treason,’’ he said, 
again catching her to him. ^^Sweetheart! My 
own beloved! Nothing could ever make you 
less to me than the noblest, the queenliest, the 
loveliest woman under the sun. Love and all 
that springs from it is pure. I ask you to be 
mine because of love. God made us male and 
female. That which he set it in our hearts 
and bodies to do can be no transgression of 
his universal law. It is not much I ask — only 
that you will let me love you, let me shield 
and shelter and guard you. O, my own! I did 
not dream you could be so hard. You are like 
the sharp flints, only all my edged words can 
strike in you no spark of Are.” 

^^How wise you are,” Selene said, smiling 
and clutching her breast. She had gone sud- 
denly white. A keen physical ache stabbed 
her heart like a knife-thrust. She staggered to 
a chair and sat heavily down. Brewster knelt 
beside her, stroking her hands and showering 
endearing epithets upon her. 

^^Selene, Selene! I did not dream it went so 
hard,” he said, contritely; ^^but, darling, I can- 
not give up my sweetheart. Maybe I am cruel 
— but what will a man not do for — more than 
his life?” 

Selene’s sobs had ceased suddenly. Her 
tears dried up. She sat upright, and looked 
about her, her cheeks a deep, glowing scarlet. 
‘^Tell me exactly what you want,” she whis- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


71 


pered, jshrinking, and turning away her face 
as he put out his arms. ^^Nothing much — only 
you/^ he said, trying to take her in his arms. 
She got up and waved him back. ^^You ought 
to go away — quick!’’ she said. ^^This — this 
cannot be decided all in a minute. We both 
feel too much now. Go — and do not come again 
until I send for you.” 

^^Impossible!” Brewster said, confidently, 
walking a step away. He was trembling all 
over, more shaken, even, than Selene. can- 
not wait for happiness,” he said; ^^at least, not 
until I am sure of it. Only give me your prom- 
ise, sweetheart, and you will see how good and 
patient I can be.” 

^^Go away — please!” Selene repeated. 
cannot think — only feel, while you are here.” 

am glad. I want you to feel — to feel the 
same leaping love that tears and rends me,” 
Brewster said. ^^My darling! O, my darling! 
You may be right to hesitate, but for my sake 
be wrong, grandly, magnificently wrong.” 

^Tor you I would dare anything — except to 
lose your love,” Selene whispered, with her 
arms about his neck. would give you my- 
self. — ah, how gladly, if it were not for the 
knowledge that in time you would come to 
hate me for the gift.” 

^^The risk shall all be mine,” he cried, strain- 
ing her against his breast. Then he let her 
go so suddenly she almost staggered, and 
turned away, with a quick shiver, his hands 


72 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


clinching hard. Selene loked at him with in- 
finite compassion. She, too, was shaken as a 
reed in wind. She longed, with a wild, im- 
measurable longing, to fling herself at his feet 
and say to him she would be his slave, content 
to lose the whole world if only the losing 
would give him an instant’s pleasure. She had 
by nature a rare fibre of devotion. She had, 
too the warmth and fervor of her oriental tem- 
perament. She was of the north by birth and 
ancestry, yet surely in some far eon her soul 
had steeped itself in the glow of the tropics. 
Every nerve in her cried aloud its impulse of 
surrender. This man was her mate, predes- 
tined from all time — she yearned to cling to 
him and say, ^^My lord, my king, do with thine 
hand-maiden as seemeth good in thy sight.” 

Something withheld, something remote, in- 
tangible as the fine essence of a flower. It was 
not a moral scruple — moral scruples she had 
none in the face of love. It was not instinct, 
since every primal chord was vibrant with 
love’s impulse. Whatever it was, it moved her 
to dart to the door, rush through it, and say 
from the outer side of it: 

^Tf you will come again in three days my 
answer will be ready.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Three days later Earle Brewster stood await- 
ing Selene, his face as white and set as though 
it showed beneath a coffin lid. His eyes were 
twin fires in cavernous depths. Throughout 
the three days he had scarcely eaten or slept. 
There were haggard dines all about the inso- 
lently handsome mouth. He stood stock still 
save for a nervous clinching of the hands in 
the ambush of folded arms. 

Truly the pains of hell had hold upon him. 
Pride, dominance, desire, each roused to the 
highest pitch by this unlooked for delay, com- 
bined to make him emotionally a figure of fury. 
Outwardly he was as one frozen. His mother 
had looked at him with something like awe 
that day, and his little child, in spite of child- 
hood’s unknowing courage, had shrunk from 
him in passing, and said to her nurse: ^Tapa 
is an o-gre,” with great stress on the word. 

will leave him to be eaten by the lions 
when they come.” 

There was something decidedly ogreish in 
the gleam that lit his countenance when at last 
Selene stood before him. ^^You do not love 
me half as you love to torment me — ” he be- 
gan, but stopped short, stayed by her face of 
woe, her hanging, listless hands, her drooping 
figure. “With a rush he caught her in his arms 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


74 

and covered her face with wild kisses. ‘^Sweet- 
heart!’’ he said, crushing her so he could feel 
her tremors, “Forgive me! Do forgive me! 
But I am not a patient man. I can be less so 
than ever now that I see you suffer, even as I.” 

“Not even as you,” Selene said, gently. “You 
suffer to destroy this beautiful love of ours — 
I in the hope to save it.” 

“What do you mean? O, you can never in- 
tend to stand out against me! Sweetheart! .Be 
kind and say I may kill you — and myself rather 
than that. Death is infinitely sweeter than 
the thought of life without each other.” 

“I know it,” Selene said, still gently, sway- 
ing a little as she loosed herself from his hold. 
“If I had been a coward, Earle, you would 
have found me dead. It is because I love too 
much to stain it that I have the courage to try 
to live on — alone.” 

“Selene! You do not mean that! You can- 
not!” Brewster cried, his face blank in its de- 
spair. Selene smiled, a sad, patient, little 
smile. 

“I must tell you something,” she said; 
“something that maybe will make it easier for 
you. I have been searching my heart in all 
honesty these three days past. We are seldom 
wholly honest — least of all with our own con- 
sciences. I have found out things — even about 
this love of ours — ^I thought I knew so well. 
I do love you, Earle. I shall never love any- 
body else as well. I had set you so high on 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


76 


that love — as on a pedestal that put you far, 
far from common men. Now, though I love 
you no less, I begin to see my mistake. You 
say you love me — yet you would destroy me. 
There is a selfish, possessive element in it that 
hides from you in the depths of your own de- 
sire. You want me — want me very badly — 
that I devoutly believe — but want me upon 
your own terms. You would not for my sake 
defy your world — yet you ask me to defy* — the 
wisdom and the experience of all ages — 

‘^Stop! I do not care for cold-blooded reason- 
ing,’^ Earle broke in. 

Selene smiled wanly and went on. ^^There 
is just this further for me to say: I may be a 
poor thing— I am, I shall remain, mine own. 
I should like to be your wife. There would 
be no happiness comparable to living and 
striving to make you the man God meant you 
to be. That man is not a libertine and seducer. 
Because I love you so I will never, by God’s 
help, be the means of bringing you so low.” 

see! You want position, social conse- 
quence, hollowness, and sham,” Earle said, bit- 
terly. ^^You stickle for the outward and visible 
sign, yet fiing away the reality.” 

^^Is it unreasonable,” Selene asked, ^^that I 
should care for — the thing which drives you 
to ask so much of me? Confess, Earle. The 
truth can do no harm — if you worked in the 
mill would you hesitate to marry me?” 

^That has nothing whatever to do with it at 


76 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


all/’ he said, impatiently ; then, with a sudden 
burst of tenderness, catching her in his arms: 
^‘The only thing is — can you, will you, send me 
away?” 

must!” Selene said, freeing herself linger- 
ingly from his hold. ^^Though I am sending 
my heart, my real life, away. I love you, 
Earle, too well to let you fail in honor. I love 
this love of ours — this most precious thing of 
my life — too dearly to make its memory a hiss- 
ing and an offense.” 

^^You are right! Selene! Selene! My precious 
sweetheart!” Earle said, dropping on his knees 
to kiss her garment’s hem. Then he sprang 
up, put his hand over his eyes, and rushed 
away like a man distraught. 

Selene tottered as he left her. When she 
heard the door close behind him she fell head- 
long upon the floor, her eyes set, her hands 
rigid, her breath coming in quick, convulsive 
gasps. The fearful strain had told mightily 
upon her. She was conscious of but one thing 
— a wish to cry after him: ^^Oome back! Come 
back! Anything is better than that you leave 
me!” Her heart, her soul, her pride, were 
bruised and wounded. She was not without in- 
nocent vanities. That is to say, she was wholly 
a woman. It had been a cruel blow to learn 
that he whom she so madly worshiped had 
so great an element of weakness in him. She 
saw with a strangely logical vision that the 
keeping of his promise was but a pretext for 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


77 


the salving of his pride. The sight had been 
a wholesome bitter. If she had continued to 
believe him wholly flawless, wholly noble, she 
could never have withstood his impassioned 
pleadings. 

All the more that she was so vividl}^ con- 
scious of traitors within the fortress of herself. 
In every fibre she fairly ached to belong to 
him. She was not a woman of snow, but of 
flesh and blood, wholly human, therefore in- 
tensely lovable. It had been a gallant fight 
against the besieger, made doubly hard by the 
enemy within the gates. She had won at fear- 
ful cost. After half an hour she got up un- 
steadily, saying with dry lips: ^^The sun will 
rise to-morrow. I wonder if it will seem to 
shine for me?’^ 

Methodically she moved about, extinguish- 
ing the lights, banking the fire, straightening 
the cushions, and setting the room in its usual 
careful order. She had a pretty housewifely 
knack in her finger tips. All she touched 
seemed to fall naturally into graceful groups 
and shapings. She had been always too full 
of housewifely pride in her home. Now there 
was a touch of sanctity and saving in the care 
of the homely familiar things. 

Presently all was done. She stood in front 
of the dusky grate with a flaring candle in her 
hand. Faintly she could hear in the room 
across the hall Mrs. Barber playing softly upon 
an old melodeon. It belonged to her youth — 


78 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


John had loved it when he was a tiny lad, and 
now, though it was worn and wheezy, his 
mother still clung to it. Selene always shiv- 
ered a little at the sound of it. It seemed to 
her forlorn — almost funereal. So it was played 
only late at night, when the player fancied her- 
self unheard by ears too engrossed in their own 
concerns. Over and beyond the cracked notes 
of it Selene caught the tramp of feet, the occa- 
sional clamor of gay voices. April had come 
in with a sudden spring-like rush, and the 
streets were full of young people running to 
and fro. 

She set her candle down and took up a pic- 
ture. It was of Brewster^a handsome cabi- 
net photograph — showing his face in profile. 
He had brought it to her himself, saying with a 
half whimsical smile: ^^I know it is very bad, 
and not the least a substitute for myself, but at 
least it will serve to prevent your fancy from 
constructing a rival to me — an ideal I cannot 
approach.’’ Then he picked up a small ragged 
pastel of Selene herself and said, as he slipped 
it in his pocket, after surveying it critically: 

— m! Not so much unlike you as it might 
be, and very much ahead of a staring black and 
white thing. I believe I can tolerate it — until 
I can do better. One of these days yqu shall be 
painted for me as I desire to have you.” 

The melodeon ceased to whine and wheeze. 
Selene caught up the candle and hurried toward 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


79 


her own chamber. With her heart wounds raw 
and bleeding she shrank from even the most 
sympathetic eye. Once inside the door of her 
own quiet room, she laid the picture down 
upon the narrow white bed, knelt and pressed 
her quivering cheek to it, as one might press a 
beloved dead thing. ^^Earle! Earle! You are 
dead to me!’’ she moaned, half articulately. 

must bury my dead so I can remember him, 
not clothed in corruption, but with sinless eyes 
and strong arms, and a heart palpitant with 
life and love. Death! Death! You are the 
one real healer, the true comforter, and may I 
not ask you to come? You have healed so 
many heartaches. 

“ ‘All that tread 

The earth are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom.’ 

^^If you had not healed them — ah, me! I fan- 
cy they would have groveled lower and lower. 
^The raised spirits that walk in glory’ came up 
through tribulation, even such as that where- 
with I am troubled.” 

Very softly she flung up the window. A 
moon in its last quarter hung low in the east, 
flooding the whole world with a suffused sil- 
ver, shining too tender to be called light. It 
fell over Selene, making a halo about her 
head. Her loosened hair streamed down upon 
her white neck and whiter gown like a fringy 
mourning veil. All about her breathed the fra- 


80 


A.S IT HAPPENED. 


grance of roses — Earle’s roses, sent that morn- 
ing to plead his cause. In the still street be- 
low she caught a suddenly moving figure. It 
was too dim to note more than its outline — her 
heart did not need even that. She knew. Earle 
had lingered outside, hoping, praying for re- 
call, or else indeterminate whether to come 
back of his own motion, swoop down on her in 
the relaxation following stuggle and carry her 
to his way of thought in spite of herself. 

She was glad, so glad, he had not come back. 
Infallibly she must have yielded. Yet under- 
neath the gladness lay a keen and burning an- 
guish. He had gone. He was lost irrevoca- 
bly. All the days of her years she must walk 
alone. Wheeling swiftly, she rushed to the 
bed and fiung herself upon it, sobbing heart- 
brokenly and moaning between the sobs: 

^^My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken 
me? Give me strength to banish this idol, to 
cling to and worship only Thee!” 

Yet between the supplications she clutched 
the insensate picture, holding it against her 
heaving breast as a dying man might clasp the 
symbol of salvation. Presently she started a 
little. Just across the street an old woman 
lay dying. She had fought a good fight, keep- 
ing the faith through many discourage- 
ments, and now that she was entering into re- 
ward, she had begged those about her to sing. 
To ease her shortening breath all the windows 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


81 


stood wide — thus Selene heard clearly through 
the fresh night air: 

“As a mother stills her child, 

Thou dost hush the tempests wild. 

Boisterous winds obey Thy will, 

When Thou say'st to them ‘Be still I * 

Wondrous Sovereign of the Sea, 

Jesus ! Saviour ! Pilot me ! ” 

Selene ran back to the window and knelt, 
the tears raining over her shaken face as the 
song went on : 

“When at last I near the shore. 

And the fearful breakers roar, 

’Twixt me and the peaceful rest. 

Then while leaning on Thy breast 
May I hear Thee say to mo, 

‘Fear not; I will pilot thee.’ ” 

Selene listened, her sobs slowly dying. There 
seemed to come balm of healing in the cool 
night breeze. For an hour she knelt there, 
w^atching the silver suffusion creep and 
strengthen until all the world lay enchanted, 
its ugliness, its meanness, its scars and gashes 
drowned out in the radiance from heaven 
above. As she watched a strange calm fell on 
her. Through it she noted with a strange 
sense of separateness all that had come and 
gonejn that last fateful tw'o months. She had 
lived and died in them. Death might after all 
mean rest — not actual physical death, such as 
had come to succor the sufferer across the 
street. It had moved her to tears to see 
through the lighted window the figures crowd- 
ing about the bed for a last look, a last kiss; 


82 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


then the swift drawing back, as though to give 
room to the parting soul; the taking away of 
the pillows from beneath the dying head — at 
last, the crossing of the dead hands over the 
breast, while a man’s voice, tremulous with 
grief, said: ^The Lord gave! The Lord hath 
taken away! Blessed be the name of the 
Lord!” 

^^Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Selene 
echoed, bending her head upon her clasped 
hands. ^Tather in heaven! Help! O, help! I 
am a child bereft and in darkness. You who 
are love must be love’s last refuge from itself.” 

A benison of tears welled up in her eyes. 
They seemed to quench the flame in her heart, 
though the sharp ache remained. Presently 
she got up and wiped her eyes. The candle 
was guttering out upon the ledge in front of 
her old mirror. She extinguished it; then by 
the moon’s rays she gathered the gorgeous 
roses from out their vase, spread a length of 
thick white damask over her lap, and began 
with tender fingers to strip off their scented 
petals. will keep you always,” she whis- 
pered, now and again, pressing a particularly 
glowing bud to her lips. ^^You are the sweet- 
ness of the roses. It is the thorns I must 
throw away.” 

At dawn she fell heavily asleep, with her 
face buried in the smother of rose leaves. Her 
last conscious thought was of those other 
thorns, that could neither be plucked nor 
thrown away. 


Book Secona 


THE MAN WHO DARED. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Selene Writes: 

Aboard the F. F. V., June 10th. 

After all, instinct led me aright. When the 
blow came — the blow which shattered my life 
— my soul yearned with a yearning inexpressi- 
ble for the solitudes, the silences, the grand- 
eurs of the mountains. Always I had dreamed 
of them, living there in that teeming town, 
with the flat, fertile reaches round about it, 
laughing through summer harvests; chilling, 
freezing, numbing to every sense in the white- 
ness of the snow. 

We are here — mother and I — speeding, 
speeding through the heart of the mountains. 
It seems like a fairy tale running on into 
actual fairyland. By and by we shall stop. 
Then, I wonder if the fairyland, whose mar- 
velous beauty has brought my soul its flrst 
balm, will grow commonplace and even ugly, 
after the fashion of the good earth where hu- 
man presences defile it? But I will not think 


84 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


about that. Instead, I will feed my eyes, my 
soul, upon the vistas that loom and pass with 
the whirring revolutions of our flying wheels. 

O! The beauty of them! The wild magnifl- 
cence! The softness of dim, distant blue val- 
leys'! The beetling sternness of near crags, 
threatening to fall and crush us as we speed 
along! At least, they seem to threaten. In 
reality, I know they are far beyond the possi- 
bility of harming the peaceful myriads who 
pass them day by day. I can hardly take my 
eyes from them. Between every word my 
glances travel to the flitting splendors outside. 
Not until night shuts it aw^ay shall I dare un- 
dertake to set down all that I came hither to 
record. 

Even mother, who sits just beyond me, is 
drawn a little out of her grief. My darling 
mother! You have been an angel of succor in 
this trouble. Travel will be a boon to you, al- 
most as much as to me. All your life you have 
been shut in by Barcelona conflnes. It is time 
you began to learn how much there is in the 
big world outside. It Alls me with pride that 
is almost pain to see your dim eyes brighten 
as you note my own absorbed glances and to 
remember that it is because of me, because of 
love, rooted in mother love, you have given up 
your own world, not only unmurmuringly, but 
gladly, and set out, with me for pilot — such an 
unskilled pilot! — to And and conquer a new 
one. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


85 


The scenery we are passing oe’rwhelmed 
my heart, yet I had thought I had infinite ca- 
pacity to endure beauty. I could only sit si- 
lent, thinking: ^^DearLord! Dear Lord! I did 
not know even you could make anything so 
supreme.’’ I forgot everything else — all the 
splendors within were as nothing to the splen- 
dors without. Yet they had seemed to my un- 
traveled eyes wonderful indeed. I had thought 
of long journeying always as something te- 
dious, and confined, full, at the best, of wear- 
ing hours. I am finding myself borne as on 
a magic carpet, where I have only to wish for 
things and, lo! they appear. It is the apothe- 
osis of mind, and muscle, and money, this glid- 
ing rush across the backbone of a continent. I 
had read of it, to be sure — but reading is pale 
and tame. It fails altogether to give one the 
exquisite sensations of my present experience. 

Night has come down on us — a silver, moon- 
less night. Here or there, if I looked out, I 
might catch a massy, looming, black outline, 
or the white gleam of a star. But I shall not 
look. In two hours more we shall come to our 
journey’s end. I have persuaded mother to 
lie down, and shall spend the two hours in 
setting down faithfully much that has come 
to pass. In all my life I have never kept a 
journal. This will not be a journal — only my 
one confidante, to whose safe and silent keep- 
ing I shall confide whatever befalls me that 
is worth a record. The observation car is al- 


86 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


most deserted. I shall have it wholly to my- 
self in a very little while. Once more to my 
dear mother, to hold her hand, and kiss her 
eyelids down, then I shall come back to begin 
what I, perhaps, ought to have told my confi- 
dante first. 

Mother is sleeping like a worn-out child. 
Her eyes were so heavy she could barely lift 
them and smile at me. Dear, dear mother! 
While she is left me I can never account my- 
self wholly desolate. 

Somehow I am loath to begin — to turn back 
those closed pages of my life and transcribe 
what they contain. After all, it is not much. 
It might be summed in a sentence: Once upon 
a time there were two women, and one of them 
so exceeding sorrowful they fied away together 
into the friendly wilderness. I wonder — I won- 
der — if ever there will come for me a day when 
that would not suffice to tell me the whole 
story! It is said people live on through blight 
and heartbreak, and come to age, and wrinkles, 
and silver hairs. But it is hard to believe it, 
even with mother before my eyes. She loved 
and lost, it is true, but her loss was not like 
mine. She could weep, honoring her dead, 
with her tears. I must weep because of keep- 
ing my dead — he really is dead to me — in the 
straight path of honor. 

Words cannot picture how it hurt — and 
helped — me that he did not try to see me after 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


87 


that last night. Of course, there were casual 
meetings — more than one — where we two 
passed each other by with only the recognition 
of slight acquaintance. It was best so — infi- 
nitely best. But my heart — ah, me! what is 
the use of trying to recall and put on paper 
the ache, and longing, and deadly sense of loss 
that filled all the months between the night 
he left me and that in which I left him! 

Yes! Left him! Understand, O, trusty pa- 
per! With you I shall be as honest as if I were 
the Recording Angel. I do not say my own 
conscience — we palter with our own con- 
sciences quite as though they were persons 
outside. I dare say, there was never a wrong- 
doer yet but was able to make, if not a de- 
fense, at least a strong plea of extenuating cir- 
cumstances to the judge sitting within him. I 
left my home, my old life, all I had ever known, 
because of Earle Brewster. I could not live in 
sight of him without him — I would die rather 
than be his upon his own terms. Over against 
his passion and his pride I have set my wom- 
an’s will to keep myself unstained. I love! — 
God alone can know how I love him! But I 
will love him, if unwisely, at least, too well, to 
let love suffer stain. 

At first the talk of going affrighted mother; 
yet in the end she was eager for it — as eager, 
even, as I. She did not shed one tear when 
they told her our house was sold — ^that we 
could go away from the old life absolutely 


88 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


free. We have kept only the things we could 
not bear to part with. I thought they would 
be very many more, but the little mother 
showed herself a Spartan. She would not sell 
the cradle in which John and all her babies 
had been rocked, but she gave it to a poor 
young thing, whose sick child had no cradle. 
It was the same with many other things. 
want them to go where they will carry a bless- 
ing and be at home,^’ mother said — and I loved 
her the more for the saying. 

One very odd thing: When it was thought 
we would have a public sale, Finklen, the old 
man who buys second-hand stuff, came to me 
one day, bowing and puffing, and spluttering 
out something about a chair. It was a partic- 
ular chair — a dark, high-backed old wooden 
one. He had a customer who was most anx- 
ious to buy it privately. The customer only 
came out in his talk after I had refused even 
to let him look our household stuff over. I 
knew what he wanted; I thought I knew also 
who wanted it. Earle always made me sit in 
that old, dark chair — he said it fitted my 
queenliness — it was a sort of throne. If he 
had got it, I wonder what he would have done 
with it? But I shall never, never know. We 
shall walk apart forever hereafter. The chair 
I shall keep — it is safely stored, to be sent to 
me wffien I am established in the city. No one 
shall ever sit in it — not even myself. I shall 
keep it as a sort of shrine at wffiich I may say 
orisons to my dear, dead love. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


89 


We are going to the city — the greatest city 
of the western world- — as soon as summer is 
over. Hazardous it may seem, yet I have no 
fear. We have enough money in hand to tide 
us through the first year — perhaps even the 
first two. In that time I shall certainly be 
able to put myself in the way of earning more. 
We shall live simply, with no straining after 
that which is beyond us. I am young enough 
and strong enough to do good work of what- 
ever sort my hands may find to do. Indeed, I 
must work, if I would escape despair, maybe 
madness. I am writing sanely enough, but — 
ah, me! — it is because I dare not let loose the 
torrent within. 

Earle! Earle! You are my first thought and 
my last! I see your eyes in the light that 
steals first over my waking moments; your 
smile in the laugh of the winds at play in the 
meadows! You are with me all the time — 
around me, about me — enveloping me with 
your presence, subtly, yet really. I am yours, 
yours alone. O, the lonely longing to feel the 
pressure of your arms, the warmth of your 
kisses! I think if you came suddenly to me 
I might almost die of joy. 

Stop! O piteous fool! Stop! The man is 
not worth one heartpang. He let you go, 
whistled you down the wind of his pride, his 
position, his world. ' He is no manly man — 
he would have taken all at your hands, yet 
make no sacrifice himself! Think of all that — 


90 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


then say, if you dare, that you love him still! 
There is no excuse for him. His promise! 
Faugh! He offered you what he called the 
soul of marriage! If that dead woman meant 
anything, she meant to have him mourn her 
all his days. With you he would have been 
excellently consoled, and after you had faded 
the consoling process would have gone on and 
on. Men are sophists always in the light of 
their own hot desires. Be brave, Selene! Look 
at this man who holds your heart in thrall ex- 
actly as he is. It may be bitter, but in the end 
it may also give you your freedom! 

Freedom! O, desolate word! If I were 
truly free it would be to love and still more 
to be loved. Earle, my darling boy, I know you, 
thoroughly, pitilessly — your strength, your 
weakness — and I love you, perhaps the better 
because you are no flawless icicle! That is a 
woman’s way. You love me, not as I love you, 
but with all the strength and Are of your soul. 
You are held and bound. No man is stronger 
than his environment. I would not hate you 
even if I could. People laugh at the line — so 
trite, so vulgarized — 

“ ^Tis better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all.’^ 

I know it voices a great, an overwhelming 
truth. 

I have burned my ships. Barcelona will 
never see me again — unless — ^I was about to 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


91 


write unless it sees me Earle Brewster’s wife, 
but that is so inconceivable I shall not set it 
down. Even if I were his wife I feel for him 
too deeply to wish for such a triumph over 
the Witherby tribe. Stinging, buzzing in- 
sects that they are, I would not have them 
sting my beloved. If he came to me now — in 
the morning — with a wedding ring in his hand 
I would tell him: ^^Dear, I shall only put it on 
if you will take me where we may live in joy 
and peace.” 

No! Barcelona is behind me. The future? 
God alone knows. But this I do set down out 
of a full heart — all that a woman reasonable, 
capable, reasonably honest, wholly unre- 
strained, can do to make her way, that I shall 
do. It is more than a little curious how I have 
been led thus far upon the way. It was some- 
thing more than blind yearning for change 
and beauty, I am sure, which made me set my 
face to the mountains. How best to reach 
them I did not certainly know. Three rail- 
ways run in and out of Barcelona. We had 
never studied their routes — mother and I — so 
little had the thought of migration laid hold 
upon us. But one of them, we knew, led 
through the Piedmont Valley, around which 
the mountains lay, and so we are here in the 
heart of them. 

We can be, I think, rather proud of our- 
selves. Although we are so entirely home-bred 
provincials, this train, the last word of luxu- 


92 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


rious travel, has not made us gape and stare. 
We have accepted it, all its comforts, all its 
magnificence, quite as though they were com- 
monplaces of our daily life. It makes few 
stops. It is only as a special favor^ — won for 
us, I think, by our entire inexperiencedness — 
that we are to be put off at our stopping place, 
a thrifty village in the edge of the mountain- 
land. Perhaps it would be better if we made 
our half-way halt in their heart, but somehow 
I cannot feel easy until I have put their whole 
rugged barrier between me and — my life. 

My life! Selene Barber, the woman Earle 
Brewster loved, is dead — dead and buried be- 
yond resurrection. This pale walking image 
of her bears her name and her burdens. Hence- 
forth the image must stand for the reality. 
The good Lord send that it may always stand 
firm for the right — the right which the true 
Selene died for. 

I must stop — my heart — poor Selene’s heart 
— is not yet quite dead. It throbs as though 
it would burst. I can look back no longer. Here 
on the very verge of the new world I should 
be able to lay the ghosts of the old, but they 
haunt me — and madden me almost. — with their 
insidious whispers. ^^He will come to you! O, 
never fear! He will come!” is the burden of 
their chant. Father in heaven! Save me! 
Spare me that trial! Do not, I pray you, break 
a bruised reed! 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


93 


The train is slacking speed — and there is the 
porter. In a minute I shall be standing — a 
stranger on strange land. Mother, dearest, one 
moment! There! Give me your hand! Lean 
on me — I am strong. Let me close my book, 
put down my pen — I see a welcoming light 
outside. 


CHAPTER X. 


The Edge, June 20th. 

Perhaps I am growing fanciful. Mother in- 
sists upon it when she hears my name for our 
village of refuge. It has a commonplace ap- 
pelation which does not in the least agree with 
its location. That is wildly beautiful. It sits 
upon the very eyebrow of a cliff, looking across 
a narrow mountain valley and down into a 
winking, dancing stream. So to me it is The 
Edge — nothing more nor less than the edge of 
the world, as well as of the mountains. Here 
they have lost their wild grandeur. Instead, 
they are a riot of rippling, rounded swells. 
Semi-occasionally you find crags, and deep 
glens, and the loveliest, sunfiecked tarns. I 
suppose they must be tarns — that is what all 
the wild, pretty streams I ever read of in the 
story books were called. I like our American 
creeks better — but then it does not sound so 
romantic. Romance! Faugh! I almost hate 
the word. It brings up the library and — well 
— other things that I have determined to for- 
get. 

Creeks or tarns, the mountain waters are 
alive with leaping silver-sided things — trout, I 
suppose. Especially the water upon which The 
Edge looks down. We have found shelter in a 
dwelling that commands almost half its silvery 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


95 


length. Every day I see men whipping the 
pools of it and wading in the shallows. They 
are strangers, I hear — city men — up for the 
fishing ahead of the general summer rush. 
They w^ar rubber boots — the most of them — 
coming to the hip; carry strangely wonderful 
things they call creels, and have their hats 
banded about with leaders and flies. They 
have what they call split bamboo rods, too. I 
am beginning to find out something about the 
aristocracy of sport. In Barcelona, I dare say, 
our high society indulges in such things,but the 
fishing that the mass understands is done with 
cheap and, in the main, home-made tackle. 
The woman of the house has let me know that 
The Edge plumes itself no little upon its profit- 
able sportsmen visitors. They beat plain sum- 
mer boarders hollow, she says. She says, fur- 
ther, than the plain summer boarder is a ^^main 
dependence’^ with many of the farmer folk. ^Tf 
it wasn’t for the money they fetch in half the 
places around would be et up with the mort- 
gages,” she tells me. That is another new 
thing. In Barcelona, try as we may to be up 
to date, only the very rich or the very sick 
think of leaving home because of the season. 

That is to say, we have not caught the vaca- 
tion habit. We! It makes me laugh — that we! 
What’s Barcelona to me, or I to Barcelona, any 
more? Nothing in the round world. Still, I 
cannot just yet get out of the habit of specu- 
lating about it as though I were still of it. 


96 


AS IT HAPPEN r:D. 


Henceforth I must learn to do it as a reincar- 
nate spirit might speculate upon former states 
of existence. 

We — mother and I — are very comfortable. 
And I am safe. What is more essential — we 
have made good terms for the summer. Com- 
ing so early we shall be able to live a month 
for what the regular vacationers would pay 
for a fortnight. I am a little curious to w^atch 
the August rush. Perhaps it will divert me 
enough to tone my nerves and make me feel 
really like work. I certainly hope so. So far 
1 am literally dead — supine and listless, even 
in the face of the beauty that ought to set me 
quivering with delight and a desire to fix its 
evanescent charm. I feel none of the desir^. 
Even the sight of palette and brushes has 
grown hateful. Still, I go out every morning 
with my sketch-book. Once I caught the morn- 
ing spirit and worked away with something of 
my old fervor. In the middle of it I heard a 
man speak in the valley below. Something in 
the timbre of his voice recalled Earle. I dropped 
my book, bowed my head upon my clasped 
hands, and sobbed — dry, choking, soul-rending 
sobs — for an hour. And all night long I could 
not sleep. Through the darkness I saw and 
heard him so plain I lay palpitant, as though 
he were coming to kiss and claim me. 

Will he ever leave me in peace? It is cruel, 
now that I have given up everything, to have 
him haunt me, harry me, day and night. Al- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


97 


though I love him so I should be able, at least, 
to work apart from him. Mother watches over 
me with a tender, loving patience that should 
be in itself inspiration. She does not know all 
the truth — I have told her only that we had 
agreed a marriage between us was impossible. 
Dear heart! I would not grieve her delicate 
gentlewoman’s nature so much as to tell her 
any man rated lower than the best the woman 
her son saw fit to make his wife. There is 
something wonderfully touching in her trust- 
ful pride in me. She is infinitely sorry for the 
pain I suffer. Though I do not speak it she 
reads it in my dark-circled eyes, my pallor, my 
drooping head — and infinitely glad that I am 
still her daughter, still John’s wife, called by 
his name. 

She counts nothing a sacrifice for me. Only 
this morning she came to me with a lovely 
string of old chased gold beads. ^^John’s 
father gave them to me upon our wedding 
day,” she said. hardly ever wore them — 
you know I was always thin — but they will be 
beautiful on your round throat. I have kept 
them to put in the coffin with me, but now I 
want you to have them, in remembrance of me 
and my boy.” 

I shall wear them to please her — what would 
I not do to please her? — the one human crea- 
ture who cares whether I live or die, am happy 
or sorrowful? I must in some way make up to 
her all I have cost her. It is no little thing for 


^8 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


one to pull one’s self out of an accustomed 
place when one is w ell past middle age, and go, 
in blind trust, into strange, new scenes. To- 
night 1 am writing, possessed with a fury of 
notion. Any sort of action. I must do some- 
thing or scream aloud. It is raining outside — 
soft, pattering, summer rain. In the morning 
there will be a new heaven, a new earth. 

I shall go out into it. I shall take mother 
w ith me. And I shall ask her : ^^Dearest, what 
is it your wish that we shall do all tiiis summer 
day? She will smile and demur and hesi- 
tate, but I shall carry her off to a fair hillside 
I have found, where there are ferns in the 
shadow and daisies in the sun. There I shall 
establish her on the rocks, like a queen on her 
throne, and talk to her, and make her tell me 
stories — stories of John, a baby, a little lad, a 
big boy, almost a man, begging to go with his 
father, or, later, to go and fill his father’s va- 
cant place. 

They are sweet stories, full-fiavored with the 
sweetness of home and love. O, if only I had 
loved John as I love Earle, how happy I could 
be to mourn him and cherish his memory all 
the days of my life! This world is all criss- 
cross. The worst of it is the way it seems a 
touch would set it right. If there were no 
pomps and vanities, neither the desire of the 
eyes, nor the pride of the fiesh, we might come 
Tery near to realizing our heaven below. 

I must stop. If I go on longer there will 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


99 


surely come a mood of madness. The wind is 
rising, the rain tattoo is lulling to the faintest 
patter, like the sound of fairy footfalls. I won- 
der if there will ever fall a rain for my parched 
heart? I wonder — I must stop. Good-night,. 

my confidante! Good-night! 

********** 

The Edge, June 23d. 

The best laid schemes of mice and men go- 
wrong — likewise the best laid schemes of 
women. It was fair in the morning, as my 
heart had prophesied; but a rainbow arched 
the fairness, presage of further showers. In 
spite of it I set forth upon my outing. The 
hillside — ah! what words shall paint its cool, 
green freshness, with raindrops nestling still 
in the hearts of the flowers and the depths of 
the grass! The ferns seemed to uncoil their 
new fronds visibly. All the shady spots waved 
with them — the mossy ledges seemed heaped 
with green velvet cushions, regal in their soft- 
ness. All about the birds sang — not their full- 
throated fair weather songs, but in fitful chor- 
uses of dropping notes. 

They knew, those wise birds, the rain was 
not over. I knew it, too, but just then my 
mood was too willful to let knowledge lead to 
wisdom. We set out, with an umbrella be- 
tween us — a big, tent-like affair I have set up 
for mother’s benefit. We had, beside, our 
lunch basket, my sketch-book and easel. I 
begged to leave them behind, but mother in- 


100 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


sisted they should bear us company until I 
was forced to give in to her. But waterproofs 
and overshoes — I would none of. ^^If we 
must be lumbered up with them/’ I said, ‘^we 
had better stay indoors.” 

I had my reward for that fine piece of folly. 
Toward eleven o’clock there came the quickest 
heavy showier. It was a regular thunder gust 
— a blue-black cloud, veined through with 
forked lightning, sharp wind, and big, pelting 
drops falling in thick sheets. It seemed to 
gather all in a minute around at the back of 
the hill. We hardly caught the first roll of 
thunder when it was in sight and between us 
and shelter. There was nothing for it but to 
run down hill to the streamside, where there 
are big, shelving rocks. I knew they would 
save us from the worst of it — at least they 
would so far fend off the wind as to make the 
umbrella avail. So I snatched up mother and 
scurried down with her, leaving easel and 
sketch-book to their fate. 

Even then we got smartly sprinkled before 
our haven of refuge was reached. At the very 
last I slipped, and fell sprawling, but clung 
desperately to the lunch basket until I was 
again on my feet. What amazed me was to 
find myself laughing aloud over my mishap, 
just as I used to laugh when I fell in the snow- 
banks on my way to school. Mother looked 
at me, the gladdest light coming into her eyes, 
am getting my daughter back,” they ap- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


101 


peared to say — and so gently I was thoroughly 
ashamed. Darling mother! You are enough 
for any mortal’s worship! Whither thou goest 
I will go, whither thou stayest I will stay; thy 
people shall be my people, and thy God, above 
all things, my God. ^ 

I had just set her snug in the deepest recess 
of the rocks, and stood holding the umbrella 
tent to shield her still more, when two men 
came running toward us — two fishermen, with 
rods over their shoulders and creels strapped 
at the waist. I knew who they were — our land- 
lady is better than a city directory. She can 
tell to a single entity all who come and go in 
the village. Indeed, she not merely can, but 
will. The only way to keep from hearing is to 
run awayr— and we have not always energy for 
that. So we are to be pardoned for knowing 
that the taller of the fishermen was a certain 
Mr. Deering, who hailed from New York City, 
whose business was indeterminate, but who 
was known to have a deal more money than 
he put to wholly good uses. As, for instance, 
he was supposed to be sporty, from the fact 
that he had incited the village lads to get up 
a cock fight and wagered ten dollars even on 
the result. As he backed both competitors it 
did not seem to me he was taking an undue 
advantage. Still, I had not said so — my land- 
lady’s .scruples are things one does not wilfully 
tread on when once one knows their strength. 
Mr. Deering’s companion was also a New 


102 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Yorker, and reported to be an artist in search 
of health and the picturesque. 

His name was Bricknell. Deering had a 
way of shortening it to Brick. The Edge had 
adopted the same fashion, until the real name 
appeared only at the postoffice. 1 had 
encountered Brick more than once in 
the course of my strolls, but so far 
we had preserved that affectation of ig- 
norance regarding each other’s existence that 
is demanded by the proprieties of semi-rural 
American life. The real ruralist is, I have 
found, always full of good-fellowship and 
ready to recognize a fellow-creature in any- 
thing human. There are, I find, many points 
in common between the extremes of society. 
The very high and the very low are equally 
approachable. It is those between who are so 
fearful for their gentility they put up in their 
faces a moral ^^Keep Off the Grass” sign. 

I am wandering. As Brick caught sight of 
me he touched Deering’s arm significantly and 
said under his breath: ^^There! You see, I 
was right! I have found, not the lost arms of 
the Venus de Milo, but the Venus herself, in 
flesh and blood.” 

He never meant me to hear him. Perhaps 
he thought the storm would drown his voice; 
perhaps, also, the rocks have the conformation 
of a whispering gallery. However that may 
be, I felt myself redden furiously. For my 
life I could not help it. Deering had glanced 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


103 


at me. It was a glance that stung like a whip- 
lash. I caught myself repeating inly what 
Earle had said to me — men would look on me 
to lust after me. I swung a little about so as 
to interpose the umbrella between us, but had 
to change my position, as the rain was dash- 
ing in wildly. Mother should be sheltered 
from it, as she in turn should shelter me from 
the insult of that man’s eyes. I spoke to her, 
in a low tone, asking if she were comfortable 
and bidding her not to be afraid. The place 
where I stood was almost in the water’s edge. 
With dismay I saw the stream coming nearer 
and nearer. The rain was so torrential if it 
lasted half an hour the brook would be in 
flood. 

For myself, I did not care. It was another 
thing about mother. She is so frail, like a 
piece of old porcelain, I trembled at the 
thought of a drenching for her. High up in 
the rocks there was a dry niche. If only she 
could clamber into it she would be safe. I 
measured the distance with my eye, then 
looked down at her. It was hopeless, I saw, 
for her to make the effort. I had resigned my- 
self to the inevitable, when Deering said at my 
eibow : ^^Excuse me — but storms do not let one 
stand on ceremony. Mrs. Barber, if you will 
allow me, myself and my friend can put your 
mother up there where she will keep dry.” 

^Tf you will do it I shall thank you very 
much,” I said. He smiled at me — he has, cer- 


104 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


tainly, a winning smile. Brick was already 
scrambling up the rocks. In a minute he stood 
firm, reaching down his arms. ^^Don’t be 
afraid, ma’am! Deerihg can lift you like a 
baby, and I — oh, I’m ever so much stronger 
than I look,” he said, cheerily. Deering smiled 
again, and nodded; then picked up mother and 
held her higher than his breast, as lightly and 
as tenderly as I might hold a little frightened 
child! Brick caught her and set her in a nat- 
ural arm chair of rocks. ^^Now let it rain all 
it pleases!” he called down to us, standing be- 
side her. ^^You two strong ohes need not mind 
it — and we are safe,” turning to mother with 
a bright smile, as he sat down at her feet. 

^^Shall I not help you up, too?” Deering 
asked, holding out his arms tentatively. I shook 
my head. ‘There is no room,” I said. “Be- 
sides, now that I can have all the umbrella, 
I shall do very well. But you may pass up the 
lunch basket. The clouds are thickening so it 
may have to answer for everybody’s dinner.” 

“Who cares?” he said. “O, but this is jolly! 
A picnic all our own out in the rain!” Brick 
shouted down to us as he caught the basket. 
Deering was measuring the space on the rocks 
with his eye. “There is room in plenty,” he 
said, at last. “And, really, you will have to get 
up there. The brook will be running like a 
mill race where you stand inside the next five 
minutes.” 

“I am strong — it will not wash me down,” I 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


105 


said. ^^As for a wetting, I do not mind that in 
the least.^^ 

^^But I cannot let you get a drenching when 
it is easier to be only damp,’’ he said, smiling 
and dropping upon one knee. He had on his 
high boots, so it really did not matter that he 
knelt in two inches of racing, muddy water. 
As he looked at it he said, half mournfully: 
^‘No more good fishing for three days at least. 
Those rascals, the trout, will be so gorged with 
worms they will disdain the handsomest fiy 
that ever was cast.” 

^What do you want?” I asked, as he looked 
at me without speaking. He nodded impa- 
tiently, saying: l^There’s your step. Brick, 
give her a hand! Now, up you go! Otherwise 
I shall have to scramble up, with you over my 
shoulder.” 

am not light enough for that,” I said. 
Then, as the water was coming down in boil- 
ing waves, I stepped as he had bidden me and 
found myself safe and snug at mother’s elbow. 
Brick shouted with laughter as Deering leaped 
up after me. ^^Oh, oh !” he cried. must sketch 
that scene. The fellows at the Racquet will be 
wild when I show it there.” 

^^You will do no such thing. Behave, can’t 
you, once in your life?” Deering retorted, then 
bent down to mother, with a whimsical laugh, 
saying: ^^My dear madam, if we were very 
proper persons we would at once present our- 
selves in due form to each other; but as we 


106 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


have been in The Edge ten days each that 
would be a waste of breath, since, I dare say, 
each of us is much better informed about the 
other than we can possibly be about our- 
selves.’’ 

^^The ten days make that inevitable,” I said. 
Mother smiled at me and shook her head. But 
she held out a hand to each of the strangers, 
saying, in that sweet, old-fashioned way of 
hers that makes me so proud of her: ^^At least, 
I feel sure we know you well enough to ask 
you to dinner. Mr. Brickwell, please pass me 
the lunch basket. I dare not trust Selene to 
open it — she is a headlong child — and I put 
it up myself ever so carefully, even if I did not 
know we should have company.” 

Brick knelt before her holding the basket. 
We were so crowded there was no place for it 
— at least, no safe place. He looked up at her 
with sunny eyes and said, a little hesitatingly, 
yet with confidence: wonder if — you won’t 

mind a fellow’s having something to drink?” 

^^Not a bit, if it is worth drinking,” mother 
said, smiling back at him. ^^My husband al- 
ways liked a glass of wine with his dinner, 
and I have never found out why the abuse of 
a good thing should forbid its use.” 

^What a delight you are!” he said, warmly. 
^^I’d give a thousand dollars to hear my mother 
say the same thing. She thinks, bless her 
heart, that the devil lurks in every bottle that 
ever had anything stronger than milk in it. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


107 


She even sighs and shakes her head when she 
thinks about my doctor ordering me to take 
a glass of sherry once in a while.’’ 

can vouch for the sherry he is going to 
offer you, madam,” Deering said, nodding to- 
ward Brick. ^^Brick has a good heart — the best 
in the world almost — but when it comes to a 
palate for things that require to be exquisite 
- — well, all I can say is that he should pray to 
be permitted always to choose for his enemies. 
The sherry in his flask is good, though— the 
best in this country — genuine Amontillado. 
Let me beg you two to flnish it with me; then 
you will certainly not be harmed.” 

^^Mrs. Barber — young Mrs. Barber — must 
not be left out,” Brick said, stoutly. Deering 
laughed, a low, amused laugh. ^^You leave me 
out of the count,” he said. am here to look 
after young Mrs. Barber. Sherry is a good 
tonic — for aged and feeble persons. For such 
as she and myself — what do you say to genuine 
eau de vieT’ 

He pulled from his breast pocket a flat silver 
flask, richly chased. The top flew back as he 
touched a hidden spring, revealing a tiny cut 
glass drinking cup resting in its recess. This 
he fllled with a fragrant, oily, mellow stuff 
from within the flask and passed it to me, say- 
ing: ^^You have no doubt drank deep of an- 
other water of life — still, you must not disdain 
this.” 


108 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I swallowed it, why I hardly know. In- 
stantly my veins began to run warmly, hap- 
pily, my mouth wreathed itself into smiles. I 
knew my eyes were sparkling, my cheeks two 
damask roses. I caught mother’s eyes full of 
gentle wonder, touched a little with alarm. 
They made me smile as I had not smiled since 
that night when I died. The liquor had not 
gone to my head. It was as steady, as sane, as 
head could be. Mysteriously it had reached 
some secret spring of the soul and set forces 
working that had been clogged and dumb.” 

We ate, huddled there, the rain dashing im- 
potently under our rock roof. The food was 
ambrosial. As we ate I laughed and chatted 
with the strangers as I have seldom done with 
my nearest friends. Deering kept his eyes fast 
upon me. I felt the looks but no longer re- 
sented them. I was in a mood to defy life and 
the w^orld and Fate. The rest seemed in a 
degree responsive to it, even my gentle mother. 
We were so absorbed in ourselves we forgot 
everything else. It came with a shock of sharp 
surprise when mother said, looking across the 
creek, ^Why, the rain is over! See, the sun is 
shining as bright as ever.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


The Edge, June 29th. 

My birthday has passed — I am turned into 
my thirtieth year. From what is in my heart I 
might be a hundred. God send I may never 
see such another as that birthday, now three 
days back. Oh, it was cruel! Fate might have 
chosen some other time for her last fell blow. 
Ever since I had only strength to murmur, 
^^All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone 
over me!’’ 

Earle came to me — Earle, my lover, more 
than ever my lover — wild with love and loss. 
Heavens! It makes me shudder even while I 
thrill to recall the mad longing, the desperate 
hunger in his eyes. He came on me unawares. 
That was not wholly kind. I know he thought 
to surprise me with my guard down, and so, 
maybe, to win an easy victory. 

All day I had been restless and singularly 
depressed. I had stolen away from them all. 
Since our adventure in the rain Deering and 
poor Brick have fallen into the friendliest in- 
timacy with us. Mother smiles approval of 
them, and I do not wonder at it. They treat 
her like a queen upon her throne. But I am 
not a princess regnant nor even potential. 
They have developed in me an element of good 
fellowship which is a surprise to myself. Of 


110 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


course, their good fellowship is touched the 
least bit in the world with gallantry, but so 
delicately one must be wholly flattered by it. 
Still, upon my birthday everything human 
wmre upon me. I wanted silence and the hills. 
I stole away to them for comfort. There is a 
rocky, shady peak some little way back of my 
favorite hillside from which one can look all 
up and down the valley and on to the railway. 
There I hid myself at the foot of a tall pine 
lying prone on the carpet of clean, brown, 
sweet-smelling needles and staring at the lit- 
tle blue dots of sky I caught through the net- 
work of branches. 

I heard no word, no sound, even. Suddenly 
someone knelt beside me, caught me as though 
he would never let me go, and kissed, kissed, 
kissed me, crushing me the while in a breath- 
less embrace. Oh, the heaven of that minute! 
Heaven ! Maybe I am sacrilegious, but I dQubt 
if waking to find myself in the mansions of the 
blest would have so filled and flooded my soul 
with pure, quick-leaping bliss. 

At last Earle let me go, only to snatch me 
again to his heart and say huskily: ^^Selene! 
My sweetheart! Are you not sufficiently pun- 
ished for this wickedness you have wrought?^’ 

I did not answer him; I dared not let him 
hear the gladness in my voice. He had come! 
It must be he who had repented. He would 
never, never leave me. I should never again 
know the lonely, intolerable ache of^ empty 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Ill 


arms and empty heart. I drew away from him 
gently, smiling at him and putting out my 
hand in signal that he must sit quiet at a little 
distance. 

am glad, so glad to see you,’’ I said, at 
last. To my own ears my voice was vibrant- 
He started painfully as I spoke. ^^Are you only 
glad?” he asked, a little resentfully. ^^Glad,. 
Oh, Selene! Sweetheart! I have come to you 
across the very gulfs of hell.” 

For the first time I looked narrowly at him- 
His face was drawn and white, his eyes blaz- 
ing. He moved nearer and said, not offering 
to touch me: ^^Oh, my sweetheart, you have 
brought me to a pass I thought no human 
creature ever could. I have come to entreat 
you, to besiege you, to compel you, if I must, 
to take back that cruel, that senseless cruel 
decision. Be mine! You must! You shall not 
make all the sacrifices. I am willing, anxious^ 
to meet you half way. Say you will give me 
your swTet self and henceforth both of us shall 
be dead to our worlds. I have it all arranged; 
that is what has kept me so long from your 
side. Give me your promise, and we can dis- 
ajjpear, with no harm, no hurt to a living soul. 
I have here in my pocket that which represents 
ready money enough to keep us in modest lux- 
ury so long as we shall live. Other things are 
all arranged. My mother will not suffer; my 
child will go into safe hands. I am giving up 
all my world for you.” 


I 


112 AS IT HAPPENED. 

^^No; it is for your own way/’ I said. 

Earle, my darling. Do you not see how cruel, 
how desperately cruel all this is? Do you not 
see that if for this desire you are ready to fling 
aside all the ties of nature — your mother, your 
child, your place and station among your home 
people — I dare not trust myself to it. When 
the flame of it dies, as die it will, then you 
will repent — ^you will find me a burden, a clog, 
a hindrance. Honor might hold you to me, but 
the bitterness of death would be as honey 
compared to that — ” 

^^Still carping; still reasoning!” he broke in, 
roughly. ^^Selene, you are one of nature’s con- 
tradictions. You Ipok like — nay, you are^ — a 
real woman, all fire and dew and sweetest 
sweetness; yet when it comes to the crux of 
things then the woman takes ffight. In her 
stead there is a palterer who never knew a 
heart-throb. Answer me at once. Will you 
take me or leave me? By the God, you shall 
do the one thing or the other! I will not be 
played with to soothe your hurt pride, your 
lust for coquetry and conquest!” 

^^Earle!” It was all I could say. Saying it 
I flung up my arms, half rose, staggered and 
fell. The rest is black darkness — a long, black 
blank it seems to me. I came out of it to find 
myself in his arms, my head pillowed upon his 
breast, his fingers stroking my temples, his 
mouth close to my ear whispering the tenderest 
entreaties, the most caressing words. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


113 


I did not try to push him away. It was be- 
yond me. Strength, woman’s pride, self-re- 
spect, everything, were for a minute submerged 
in the flood of my love. There wa^s bliss inef- 
fable in the bare touch of his Angers. I lay 
inert in his arms, letting him clasp me, as our 
mother earth may one day clasp me, into rest 
and peace. I knew it could not last. I knew 
the struggle was but barely begun. Strength 
must come to me from some source; why not 
through the tonic of this exquisite and un- 
namable joy. 

^^Sweetheart, speak! Say you forgive me!” 
he whispered, at last. I opened my eyes and 
looked full in his face. The glance almost con- 
quered me. I saw in it the ravages of pain and 
passion. He had aged by ten years since the 
night of our parting. A woman who stands 
valiantly against passion, even her own, is al- 
most surely undone when pity cries aloud. It 
was in my heart to say — indeed, the words 
were shaping themselves on my lips — ^^Take 
me, Earle! I am yours, bound and helpless. 
Do with me as you choose.” But something 
stayed me. 

In the thickets below a bird began to sing, 
loud and clear and sweet, to his brooding mate 
on the nest. I knew the song and the singer. 
I had made friends with the pair of thrushes 
in the long summer days. And as I heard their 
love chant a hundred things rushed over me. 
Here was a pattern for us who call ourselves 


114 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


the higher creatures. They love as they sing — 
cleanly, sweetly, purely — centering everything 
upon the home and the brood. 

My heart, storm-swept and passion-wasted 
though it was, leapt at the thought. This was 
the love it craved, love open, free, honored in 
the sight of God and man. No other love 
would appease it. Better die myself and see 
my lover die of heartbreak than to do that 
which would kill the nobility of love and, in- 
stead of leading to the heights, sink us both 
to the eternal depths. Not in my own strength, 
not for my own sake, but for love’s sake, and 
in love’s name again I bade him leave me. 

He raved, entreated, almost threatened. The 
day went by to an evening of storms. At last 
I rose, utterly worn and wearied. ^Tf you will 
not part in peace so be it,” I said. ^^It is the 
last touch of grief to leave you thus in anger, 
but leave you I must, or I shall surely die.” 

He caught me to him fiercely and began his 
mad protest afresh. Just then I heard a foot- 
step on the rocks below. It was already dusky 
down there in the shadows. Shrubs and tangle 
hid us. I held up a warning hand. Earle let 
me go and stepped back, holding out his arms. 
I lay within them for one brief second, then, as 
he loosed me, darted away and staggered down 
the hill. At the foot of it I fell senseless. 
There Deering found me. Mother had sent him 
in search of me. She had grown uneasy over 
my long stay. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


115 


When I came to myself he was chaffing my 
hands vigorously. My mouth was full of 
brandy from his ever ready flask. He looked 
down at me kindly, yet his smile was some- 
what grim, as he said, nodding lightly toward 
the hill: ^That fellow was pretty hard to get 
rid of, but I do not believe he will trouble you 
again.’’ 

^W^hy! What do you know? Did you see?” 
I began, helplessly. He* laughed still grimly, 
saying, as he helped me to my feet: ^^^elene 
Barber, you are the most infantile person — of 
your size — it has ever been my fortune to meet. 
Do you think the whole story was not plain 
at flrst blush to a man who knows life as I 
do? I could not help knowing there was a 
man, a scoundrel, perhaps, behind your pres- 
ence here, your downcast looks, your fltful 
temper. You are the sort to be intensely 
happy — except wffien the man you happen to 
love makes you otherwise. Forget him, Selene, 
unless he is a square-dealing man. No 
other sort is worth any woman’s grieving, let 
alone spoiling the finest pair of eyes in the 
world.” 

^^Don’t, please!” I said, too crushed and mis- 
erable to be more than hurt at his open flat- 
tery. He gave me a keener look; then patted 
my hand, as he might have done a little child’s, 
saying: ^^There, there. Now let me get you 
home. I’ll improvise a story — maybe it was a 


116 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


snake that frightened you — which shall let 
you get off to bed and stay there for a day.” 

‘^It was a snake,” I said, faintly, ‘‘the serpent 
that crawled in Eden.” 

He gave a low, comprehending whistle and 
hurried me home in silence. At the door I 
fainted again. What he told the others I do 
not know, but for two days and nights I lay 
in a darkened room, neither eating nor sleep- 
ing, crushed beneath the knowledge that Earle 
was lost to me forever and that we had parted 
without a kind word. 


CHAPTER XII. 


The Edge, August. 

No heart to write, O, kindly and patient con- 
fidante! The whole world has been a burden 
for — ah, so long! Since Earle went and took 
my heart with him six weeks have passed. In 
retrospect they seem six centuries. Even the 
healing of the mountains has been in vain. 

Yet something happened today which 
showed me I am not wholly dead. I was 
sketching, aimlessly, blurring in lights and 
shadows, trying to catch some of the magnifi- 
cent aerial distances, when' Brick came up be- 
hind me. The poor lad has been far from well 
lately. Though he is exactly my own age and 
has lived at racing pace, he somehow seems to 
me very raw and young. Perhaps it is Deer- 
ing’s attitute, or, rather, the refiex of it in my 
own mind. He rates Brick — always in the kind- 
liest fashion — as a big, fond elder brother 
might rate a wayward youngster of whom he 
was in truth inordinately proud and fond. 
Brick takes it beautifully. The two are the 
best sort of comrades. Brick has told mother 
many things to Deering’s credits — how he had 
stood by him in illness and trouble, helping 
around hard places and insisting that he 
should persevere, when Brick himself was 
wholly discouraged. 


118 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I knew nothing of the boy’s presence until 
I caught his breath, quick and hurried, as he 
looked over my shoulder. ^^Oh !” he cried. ^^Miss 
Selene, that is magnificent. If only I had your 
color sense!” Then a little mournfully, as his 
eyes traveled over me: ^^Or even half your 
healthy strength to use what gifts I have. I 
am just finding them out — in time to be too 
late. Deering swears at me when I say that, 
but I am mightily afraid I’m in the right of 
this. If only I could go back ten years! But 
there! Whining is no good. I must get bet- 
ter — well, in fact. I must. If I do not I shall 
not be able to look my own ghost in the face.” 

Then we talked as we had never talked be- 
fore of art and the life that leads to it and the 
innermost meanings of it to feeling souls. As 
we talked I felt almost calm, and when he left 
me fell to work again with something of my 
old delight in it. I wonder if it is true that for 
me salvation that way lies? I am uncertain 
whether I care to find out or no. These have 
been wild weeks. I have made a hundred mad 
plans — to hide in a convent, to go and nurse 
the plague-stricken, to wrap myself away from 
the knowledge of all in the obscurity of a 
drudge! I have said to myself hope was dead, 
and love, and ambition. It was only in the 
weariness of actual physical hardship that I 
could hope for rest. 

Work is nature’s anodyne; but what work? 
This dabbling in color has been always the 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


119 


delight of my soul. Form does not appeal to 
me; even flowers are but masses of tint. It is 
the crystal gold of the sunlight, the silver of 
the moonshine, the soft suffusion of cloudy 
skies that takes possession of my soul and 
makes it glad. If I could paint a great picture 
it would be vague as the Apocalypse, a huge 
stretch of heights and distances, riotously 
beautiful with all the hues of light. If only I 
could do that living might be worth while, 
after all. When I said as much to Brick the 
poor fellow’s eyes grew wistful, indeed. ^^Do 
not talk that way,” he entreated. ^^Indeed, do 
not. Miss Selene. Living is worth while, any- 
way, even w^hen you live, as I do, in the very 
shadow of death.” 

Poor lad! I understood. He has gone the 
pace that kills, especially those who have 
brain and body equally delicately attuned. 
Tears for him came to my eyes, as he went 
away. They had not dried when Deering came 
up. He is never long away from Brick, though 
I hear from my landlady, of course, that there 
are urgent pleasures daily calling him. It 
must be the man has a heart deep and tender 
or he would not thus comfort and companion 
a struggling and obscure artist, whose career, 
I very much fear, is drawing to the end. Deer- 
ing looked at my wet eyes keenly, then said, in 
the most humane tone I ever heard from him: 
^^So yOu, too, have seen the truth. Do you 
know, if life were purchasable, I would give 


120 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


half my fortune to gain twenty years for that 
poor lad?’’ 

^^Is it hopeless — his case?” I asked. Deer- 
ing nodded and said, with a bitter smile: 
‘‘Quite hopeless. I knew that when we came; 
but the mountains were his fancy, and I swore 
he should see them to the end. At first he 
mended so wonderfully it seemed a miracle 
was to be wrought. You must see the change 
of late. To think it is all so little worth while, 
too. Here is a man the world ought not to 
spare, dying before his fiower — because of a 
woman’s whim.” 

“So there is a story. I am sorry for him.” I 
said, turning away my face so he could not 
see how it whitened. He nodded again, al- 
most fiercely, saying: “Yes; but a story I 
shall not tell you in detail. She is a great 
lady, with riches, a husband, position, and all 
that. My lad pleased her fancy of the minute; 
she led him on and on, kept him dangling 
about her, until she owned him body and soul. 
Then, when in a minute of madness, over-en- 
chanted with her subtle alluring, he spoke — 
well, what all men feel in such cases, she — she 
turned and slew him with her pretense of out- 
raged innocence and wounded wifely pride. 
The truth was she had tired of him; besides, 
she had a newer lover in leash. She is high 
and haughty, and spotless — before her world. 
My wife and all the other women follow her 
lead. She can set a fashion, or ruin a reputa- 
tion, almost by the waving of her fan.” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


121 


do you let your wife countenance 
her?’’ I asked, looking at him steadily. He 
broke into a grating laugh. 

^Why do I let my wife!” he echoed. ^^Oh, 
Selene Barber, I wonder where yQu have lived 
always to have kept alive a tradition of wifely 
obedience! My wife does in all things exactly 
as she pleases.” 

^Terhaps you set her the example,” I said, 
looking away from him. He laughed again. 
^^Of course,” he said. ^There was nothing else 
to be done in such a case as ours. We had no 
illusions — I and my bride. Our marriage was 
a commercial transaction, concluded and con- 
ducted with the strictest commercial integ- 
rity. I needed her half million of ready cash 
to save encumbered real estate worth that sum 
several times over. She needed a fixed posi- 
tion, a husband and an establishment. Her 
money came out of junk, you see, and she was 
so close to it it had not been fully disin- 
fected — ” 

^Tlease do not speak that way,” I said. ^^It 
seems to me so cruel. However it may have 
happened, she is your wife. Any word that 
touches her must touch you much more 
closely.” 

He looked at me amazed. ^Wou are a sur- 
vival,” he said, at last, with that same hard 
laugh. ‘‘Perhaps if all women were like you 
no man would ever speak as I have just done. 
But do not set me down so much a fool as to 


122 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


think I speak that way often. I do not, on my 
life. There is something about you, I cannot 
understand what, that almost compels a man 
to speak his inmost thoughts.’’ 

shall forget what you have spoken, as 
nearly as I can,” I said. ^^Meantime — about 
poor Brick — is there nothing whatever that 
can be done for him?” 

^^Nothing, except what I am doing — sav- 
ing him the shame of a bloody end,” Deering 
said, speaking through shut teeth. am keep- 
ing him here because I know him so well. If 
once he came to know what I know — that the 
woman who broke his heart is making herself 
the scandalous wonder of her world by her 
almost open liaison with Brick’s supplanter — 
well, the world would wake up some fine morn- 
ing to shudder over a social tragedy. Brick 
would kill the other fellow, not because he has 
succeeded, but because he is so low he boasts 
of his success. My lad would be apt to make 
a clean job of it — end up by killing himself 
and the woman, too. When a man has felt 
in himself all the golden possibilities and 
knows they are forever gone he is likely to 
take a desperate revenge on fate.” 

He left me, shuddering and affrighted in my 
own soul over the potentialities of human pas- 
sion. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The Edge, August 20th. 

The masque of the passions has reached an 
end — all peace. Today we buried poor Brick 
under the spreading lindens of the village cem- 
etery. He begged to sleep there — such a pitiful 
begging!— little broken, gasping words in be- 
tween the spurts of blood. Deering stood by 
him to the end. I am almost ready to say now 
that friends may love and keep faith with a 
love passing the love of woman. Those two 
were certainly faithful unto death. And yet — 
Brick’s very last word was a name — ^^Agnes” — 
that sent the fire into Deering’s eyes. 

That was four days back. We waited for 
his people. Only the mother came. She is a 
good woman, I am sure, but, oh, how little she 
must have understood the son who lay so 
peacefully in his coffin. She was shaken and 
bowed with grief for him, but it was not wholly 
the grief of love bereft. There was disap- 
pointment and crushed aspiration in what she 
said to mother: ^We always knew he had 
talent,” with her handkerchief to her eyes; 
^^but it would not be so hard to give him up 
if he had not had such fair prospects opening 
before him. Only last winter the very richest 
people in the city took him up. Why, he was 
paid a thousand dollars for just one portrait. 


124 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


And the lady who sat for it had said she would 
make others sit for him. We had built on it 
so. It is so hard to think we must give it all 
up because the poor boy had not the strength 
to stand out against evil ways. Of course, it 
was the late hours, and the smoking, and — 
and the* drink that did it. What should be 
done with those who lead young men into such 
wickedness? Yes, Mr. Deering has been kind, 
but that does not make up to us. He sent the 
boy abroad, and there was where our son fell 
into those dreadful ways.^’ 

Thank God, when I die, there will be none 
to appraise my loss. It made me sick at heart 
to hear this woman, who is in her own mind 
of the very elect, speak so openly, yet so blind- 
ly. Yet Deering excused her when I told him 
of it later. His mouth put on the grim look 
I have come to know so well, but all he said 
was: ^Well, she shall be consoled. She needs 
to be, I dare say. They are desperately poor, 
I know. Brick always shared generously with 
them whatever he earned. He has left a lot of 
unfinished things — sketches and studies. It 
will be easy to see that they are sold at a fair 
valuation.’’ 

^ Which means — that you will buy them, 
wiping your own claim off the slate,” I said. 
He looked at me keenly. “Who said I had any 
claim?” he asked. I nodded: “Brick himself 
told mother — said the most he cared to live for 
was to repay you — ” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


125 


he broke in, turning sharply 
about. I saw his mouth quiver under his 
thick mustache. ^^It is curious/’ he went on, 
after a minute, ^^the effect the lad had on me. 
It must be he awoke the dormant paternal in- 
stinct. I felt almost as if I could be a good 
man while he was around.” 

^‘You are good — in your way,” I said. He 
shook his head. ^‘Not even in my way,” he 
said, ^^though that is a pretty bad one.' Miss 
Selene, I wonder if I am as much a puzzle 
to you as you have been from the very first to 
me? We are both human beings, but that is 
about all we have in common.” 

He is a big, fair man, with crisp, blonde hair, 
and sleepy, heavy-lidded blue eyes. The eyes 
rested upon me, full of frank questioning at 
first, but something gathered in their depths 
which made me turn abruptly away. Of 
course, it will never get farther than his eyes — 
that unhappy something which is so distaste- 
ful, yet seems to be so inevitable. He is the 
very pink and pattern of respectful courtesy. 
Though he may be as bad as he makes himself 
out, I am certain he will never manifest any- 
thing else toward me, unless my own manner 
should license the change. 

I did not answer his question directly. In- 
stead, I said, slowly, weighing my words as I 
let them fall: ^We are certainly unlike in one 
thing. You married a woman you knew you 
did not love, because it was to your purpose. 


126 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I — well, I have put aw^ay love^' the most 
wonderful love in the world, because I could 
not keep it- — unstained.^’ 

^^That is to say, you are impracticable — hope- 
lessly so,^’ he said; then he wheeled and walked 
away. I did not see him again until he came 
to walk with mother behind poor Brick to the 
grave. 

It was all very solemn, very touching — t-he 
rustic gathering, the old, white-haired minis- 
ter reading the ritual in a quavering treble, 
the sough of soft winds in the pines on the 
hills, the rustle of the linden boughs, and the 
droning of the humble bees through the plumes 
of golden rod flaunting all about. Some kindly 
soul had lined the grave with fresh evergreen 
boughs, and when it came to be fllled the 
rough fellows at the spades did the work very 
gently, spreading a thick carpet of soft earth 
over the boards before they began to let the 
clods and pebbles rattle down. When the 
mound was heaped I laid a sheaf of daisies on 
it. Poor Brick loved them. ^They are the 
constant flowers,’’ he said to me one day, giv- 
ing me a choice handful. His mother w'atched 
me, a little resentfully I thought, as though 
she might be thinking, ^^Here is an intruder 
who takes up some part of the attention which 
should center on me, the chief sufferer.” But 
Deering gave me a grateful look. If that man 
has a heart poor Brick found the way to it. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


127 


The Edge, June 26th. 

Another year, another birthday! I am rising 
thirty, and I have gone back ten years. This 
Selene is no gay girl of sweet and twenty, but 
she has the spring of youth, which is hope. 

So much — so much — has come and gone 
since last I wrote. Odd that I should pen no 
line in all the months I have been away from 
this little mountain village; yet not strange, 
either. In the city one barely lives — it is all so 
breathless, so absorbing, there is no room for 
anything more. Mine was the fullest possible 
life there; the wonder w^ould be if I had 
snatched time to write of it. Here in the 
sweet content of the mountains, where for two 
full weeks I have given myself up to the de- 
light of looking at them, I shall pick up my 
broken strands and weave from them a con- 
nected fabric. All the more connected, per- 
haps, that I have waited. Things show much 
more at their true values in perspective. 

Perspective! I hate that word. I have a 
great mind to blot it. I have had it hurled 
at me in all the moods and tenses — most mad- 
denly of all by that French water colorist, who 
raved over the tints of my ^^Autumn Foliage,’’ 
but said, holding it upside down, and sidewise, 
and endwise: ^^Madame! Ze perspective? 
Where ees him?” 

I must go back to the first of it. Really, 
though, I think the first has been told. Like 
the last, almost, it was Deering. For my life 


128 


A.S IT HAPPENED. 


1 do not know — I did not even know when it 
was happening — how it all came about that he 
fell in the way of looking after me as he had 
looked after that poor boy — with a difference, 
however. After the burial he always showed 
me a dry, wholly impersonal kindness. One 
day he took a portfolio of my sketches mother 
had lugged to light, and went through them in 
the most ultra-critical manner, squinting his 
eyes, holding them about in different lights, 
and never saying a word until he had dropped 
the last one. Then he got up and stretched 
himself a little. ^^Young lady, you can make 
a painter — if you will condescend to learn 
how,’’ he said, at last. ^What I mean is, your 
color sense is fine, but you have not the first 
rudiment of technic. Are you willing to work 
and wait and watch five years?” 

^Ten, if it means learning to do what I have 
always wanted,” I said. He did not answer 
me for a full minute. Then he said, thought- 
fully: 

am certain it can be done, but it is going 
*to take grit — real, stubborn grit. I think you 
have it. What do you say?” 

do not know,” I answered; ^^but I am 
willing to find out by trying.” There the mat- 
ter rested until next day, when he was ready 
to go away. He came and talked with mother, 
not me; but as he left, said, nodding very em- 
phatically: ^Wou are going to hear some 
news — astonishing news — very soon. Be sure 
you do not let it overcome you.” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


129 


I laughed, and was amazed at myself. Laugh- 
ing was foreign to my feelings then, on many 
accounts. But somehow Deering has always 
affected me morally something as the glass of 
brandy he made me swallow in the beginning 
of our acquaintance. For two days mother 
kept her own counsel. Upon the third there 
came a telegram, and after she had read it 
she said: ^^Our holiday is almost over, Selene. 
Dear child, do not look alarmed over it, but I 
commissioned Mr. Deering to find us an apart- 
ment in the city. We will go to it next wTek. 
He has told me what he thinks of your chances, 
and I mean that you shall have every advan- 
tage.’’ 

I did have every advantage. Between them 
mother and Mr. Deering made me almost 
ashamed, their kindness was so overwhelming. 
We were soon comfortably settled in a tiny 
bird’s nest of a place, but trim and dainty and 
bright as any place could be. How we reveled 
in the trimness, the brightness, we two way- 
farers, who had pictured in our mind’s eye life 
in a flat as a dim and airless existence. And 
then the delight of making the tiny home ex- 
press ourselves! No matter what we chose 
to put in it, we had no fear of Mrs. Grundy be- 
fore our eyes. In fact, I do not think Mrs. 
Grundy exists for independent city folk. They 
are a law unto themselves, so long as they 
keep within the pale of the health board and 
police regulations. 


130 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


My masters! Heavens! If I try to tell of 
them I shall lose heart for everything else. 
Mr. Deering chose them. They gave me private 
lessons. He would have it so. ^^You are too 
big, too mature, for the League, for any of 
the classes,’’ he said. ^^Besides, you want dif- 
ferent training. I know the men who can give 
it.” I am sure they tried as faithfully as ever 
men did. I must have been a wearing pupil; 
I can see that myself. I listened to them at- 
tentively and tried to profit by every word. 
But I have found out a queer thing. I am not 
an old woman, but my muscles have acquired 
while they were still plastic a trick of respond- 
ing to a certain mental impulse with a motion 
which is often the reverse of what I know it 
should be. That has made the unlearning very 
hard and my hours of study seasons of grind- 
ing labor. But I have not given up. I shall 
never give up. There is too much at stake. 

Love no longer flames the day-star of my 
soul. In its stead there burns ambition> — am- 
bition to set my name high on the roll and let 
it be read there by the man who would have 
thrown up his world for me, yet lacked the 
manliness to brave it. 

I have made a beginning. This is my se- 
cret, O, best of confidantes! It is shared only 
with you and one other — my good, bluff, 
brusque Deering. I have forgotten to tell you 
the change in him. He has never, by word or 
look, since I became, after a sort, his protege, 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


131 


given a sign that lie regarded me as a woman. 
Sometimes his want of difference has hurt me ; 
then I have laughed inly, saying: ^^Ah, how 
much better that it is so!^’ At first I was 
afraid. But Deering is at bottom manly. Per- 
haps my very helplessness, the fact that I am 
so alone, and so forlorn, has put him upon 
honor regarding me. 

He knows of it; he encourages me to hope. 
I am painting the ^^Vision of St. John.’’ It has 
haunted me from my earliest years. If only I 
can manage to put on canvas one-tenth part 
of its crowning splendors as they melt and 
waver before my enchanted eyes, then, indeed, 
the world will stop to look. I work at it only 
by fits and starts. The masters? I would not 
let them set eyes on it for a million dollars. 
They could never be quite so sensible as I al- 
ready am of how far I have come short of the 
glories I see in mental vision, and they would 
pick flaw after flaw — this was out of drawing, 
that lacked form or poise, or this was faulty 
in composition. 

I am learning what they can teach me as 
rapidly as my slow mind permits. It may be 
years before I can bring hand and brain so in 
harmony as to realize my vision. It is my la- 
bor of love. If it takes the best part of my life 
to make it perfect I shall not grumble. Mean- 
time, it shall not be profaned by unfriendly 
eyes. 

Living has not been over-costly. It is the 


132 


A.S IT HAPPENED. 


lessons that I shudder to think of. Still, we 
have a thousand dollars of our little capital. 
It is in our Barcelona bank, because there in- 
terest is higher. Before it is gone I may be- 
gin to earn money — not great sums, but mod- 
est ones, as modest as our desires. Besides, we 
shall be in better circumstances; many expen- 
ses incident to setting up a home will not have 
to be met again. The pension helps out famous- 
ly. Blessings on a thoughtful and noble gov- 
ernment that makes provision, even so humbly, 
for those its defenders left behind. Mother's 
eyes shine, and she holds up her head in pride, 
when she goes out with her quarterly check 
to supply some special need. 

Still, I do not quite see how we could have 
got on but for the good Deering. He knows 
so much, in so many ways, and all his knowl- 
edge has been put at our service. Then he has 
kept me supplied with flowers — they went a 
long way toward staving off heart sickness and 
heart hunger. He has sent us tickets, too, for 
the opera, the theater, about everything we 
have cared to see. Once with a batch there 
was a scrawl : ^^Look in the upper right hand 
box tonight. Mrs. Deering has a party in it.’’ 
Again, he bade me one day look out for her car- 
riage in the park. want you to see her un- 
der gaslight and by daylight,” he said. ^Tt 
will help you to understand.” 

It did help me. Mrs. Witherby, I am cer- 
tain, would say Mrs. Deering was a stylish 


AS IT HAPPENED. ” 


133 


woman. I am sure she is stylish myself — 
but it is rather bad style. She is loud 
by nature, high-colored, with a face full of 
heavy lines, and a lumpish figure. In her 
youth she was square and somewhat raw- 
boned. At least, I think so, from the way she 
has laid on fat — or padding. can never per- 
mit her to take note of your existence. You 
are out of her world — it is best that you stay 
out of it,’^ Deering said, frankly, almost as 
soon as we were established. ^^She would call 
on you if I asked it, and send you a card to 
one of her interminable dinners. But you 
would certainly gain nothing by the acquaint- 
ance — and you might possibly lose a great 
deal.’^ ) 

Deering himself came but rarely, though we 
heard from him in some fashion at least three 
times a week. He came always in the morn- 
ing. am supposed to be a man of fashion 
after fashion is awake,’’ he explained. ^^My 
only freedom betwixt November and midsum 
mer is in the hours I snatch when I ought to 
be in bed. To make up for them I doze com- 
fortably through the after-dinner oratory, 
which is among the pains and penalties of be- 
ing ranked a leading citizen.” 

He is fond of riding, and often came to us 
on his way home from a canter in the park. 

wish you could have the same thing every 
day,” he said more than once, muttering after- 
ward something about the absurd western way 


134 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


of not teaching every girl to ride. If only I 
had been southern I would be as much at home 
in the saddle as a fish in water. To turn the 
tables upon him I usually answered that if I 
had happened to be southern he would proba- 
bly find my door shut in his face, since he was 
politically a Republican of Republicans and of 
a family that had sent more than one famous 
abolitionist to the nation’s councils. 

We are friends; we shall never be anything 
but friends. No doubt at first he felt in some 
measure what Earle calls the seduction of my 
womanhood; but that is entirely past. We 
have agreed tacitly to put aside the handicap 
of sex and be comrades upon the safe ground 
of human friendliness and good fellowship. 

Next week he comes to The Edge. I shall 
be glad — so glad — to see him. I feared he 
would not come — that the memory of the poor 
lad would be too painful for him. When I said 
as much, indirectly, he gave me an odd look. 

see you have very much to learn, Selene,” he 
said, ^^even about such a simple subject as my- 
self.” 

Mother is here with me. Dearest mother, she 
is more silvery, more wraith-like than ever, 
yet the soul of cheerful content. do not 
mind anything, Selene, now that you have 
learned to smile again,” she says. And once, 
when I talked a bit wildly of hope and fame, 
she came and kissed my cheek, saying, with 
tears in her voice: ^^Darling, I hope you will 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


135 


do it — all you have planned, and more. When 
you are famous there is just one thing I shall 
ask: Tell all the people how John always 
knew you had genius and how he wanted to 
set you above all the world. If he had lived 
he would have done it. Up in heaven he will 
rejoice to see you do it for yourself.’^ 

Her faith struck me dumb. I cowered and 
shrank — then suddenly held up my head. If, 
indeed, John knows, he will understand all it 
has cost me to keep myself as he left me — un- 
spotted and unstained. 

Earle! I no longer let myself think of him. 
Sometimes in my dreams — but let that pass. 
The book of life which held him is closed and 
sealed forever. I love him. I shall love him 
to the end. But it is not the old delirious mad- 
ness. If his love had but once been supreme 
it would have won me. My nature is devoted. 
I could say, smiling while I said it: ^^All for 
love and the world well lost.^’ But I never 
lose the world for less than that perfect love 
which is selfless and complete, casting out 
fear and knowing nothing of abasement. 
Earle, I may, after a while, be glad you did not 
love me so. In your cowardice toward your 
world I found in part my safeguard. Time is a 
wonderful consoler — a yet more wonderful 
teacher. I at least have learned from him that 
the soul, be it ever so lovelorn, cannot always 
abide in desolation if it will give itself in full 
strength to honest, hard work. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


The Edge, August — . 

I must either write or go mad. Inaction is 
impossible. In the room beyond, mother — my 
mother, John’s mother — lies, peaceful^ — and 
dead. O, God! God! Could you not spare me 
this last blow? She was all I had to love! We 
kept each other from desolation. 

And she was done to death. There lies the 
sting of it! If I had never tempted her away 
from home! — but repining is idle. I will set it 
all down just as it happened. She has seemed 
so bright and happy this summer, particularly 
since Mr. Deering came. I think he encour- 
aged her wonderfully about my progress. I 
know he has never been half so kind in his 
judgments. It has not been fulsome kindness. 
Every word has rung true. Only two days 
back mother said, when he left us : ^Clh, Selene, 
if only I can live to see you famous I shall be 
ready to depart.” The darling never had a 
thought for herself. It was all for me — be- 
cause I was a part of John. 

This morning we sat at ease together, watch- 
ing the sun dapple the mountain sides and the 
clouds play at hide-and-seek with one another 
as the wind tossed them about. I was almost 
entirely happy — so near to happiness I felt 
like pinching myself to see if I were awake 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


137 


or dreaming. Suddenly a breathless urchin 
darted up to us with a yellow envelope in his 
hand. I tried to take it, but mother was be- 
fore me. She tore it open. I saw a Barcelona 
date line, with, underneath, the words: ^Tio- 
neer Bank closed its doors this morning. Ex- 
aminer says it is a total wreck.’’ 

The signature was unfamiliar. Mother read 
it through twice, all the tfme growing white 
and whiter. Then she flung up her arms and 
dropped slowly forward. The next minute she 
would have been on the floor but that I caught 
and held her. 

me help you! She is quite dead!” a 
voice said two minutes later — Deering’s voice. 
He had followed the messenger up from the 
village, fearing bad news for us. I railed out 
at him like a mad woman, bidding him take 
back what he had said, calling wildly for stim- 
ulants, a doctor, help of every sort. He lifted 
my light burden as though it had been a 
feather, and bore her where she now lies. Then 
he took me by the shoulders and pushed me 
inside my own room, saying, as he slammed 
the door in my face : ^^Stay there until you col- 
lect yourself a ilittle. I shall do whatever is 
needed.” 

He has been better than his word. There 
was little that could be done. ^^Heart failure 
from shock,” the doctor said, at first glance, 
his eye taking in the telegram, still clutched 


138 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


in her. hand. I heard it all — had opened my 
door a little way. It was too heartless to leave 
her all alone, with strangers only about her. 
Deering kept back the curious crowd. If I had 
hated him I must henceforth be his friend for 
life, in memory of his delicate consideration 
for her — and for me. 

Young Mrs. Barber is overcome. I have all 
things in charge,’’ I heard him say. Then he 
knocked softly on my door, and when I opened 
it said: ^^Slip away if you possibly can. The 
hills will help you — and today you need help 
sorely.” 

I locked the door, and when all eyes were 
turned, shot out of the bay window and ran 
away, away — I neither knew nor cared where. 
For hours I walked, coming back only in the 
shadow of the friendly dusk. I found Deering 
waiting for me. ^^Go in, open your door and 
rest,” Fe said. will send you something — 
eat, though you may force each mouthful. 
Then rest all you may. Tomorrow morning 
you will start for your old home. You must” 
— very imperatively. know, you know, she 

craved to be laid beside her son. I shall go 
with you most of the way. All things will be 
ready when you reach the town. Be quiet! 
Do not name money at such a time. Do as you 
are bidden. You owe it to her, if not to me.” 

I obeyed him, silently. All will go as he 
has planned. Before sunrise she will be going 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


139 


home. And I am homeless forever. O, mother! 
mother! If needs must you go, death was 
doubly, trebly cruel to leave me behind. 

New York, Nov. — . 

At last I know what it is to be homeless 
amid the isolation of a great city. No wonder 
I shrank from coming back to it, though as- 
sured of a comfortable abiding place. If I had 
been ever so eager I could not have come ear- 
lier. Deering made me stay in the mountains. 
Good old Deering. I just begin to appreciate 
him as he deserves. He says we are chums, or 
rather partners. I wonder if he has really 
given me poor Brick’s place in his regard! But 
I shall hardly ever know. He grows more and 
more silent. I have' seen him only three times 
since he left me on the train twenty miles out- 
side of Barcelona. 

^^You must not go back to The Edge,” he 
said then, slipping a bit of paper into my hand. 
^When — when all is over go there — to the 
place I have written. It is farther south — 
down in the Virginia hills. I want you to see 
them in all their autumn glory.” 

I saw them. Once he came to me when the 
world was royal in gold and scarlet and pur- 
ple. It was for but three hours. was pass- 
ing — I stopped to see that you were in no mis- 
chief,” he said. Then he got horses and took 
me for a long, long drive over the hills. The air 
was like wine, the sunlight a benediction; yet 


140 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


some way they brought me no joy. Deering, 
too, was ill at ease. He sat very upright, 
speaking more to the horses than to me. Once 
he turned and looked at me with a narrow^, 
calculating gaze. Five minutes later he asked 
abruptly when I could be ready to return to 
New York. 

At' once I told him — I was already so deep 
in his debt — I was anxious to set about finding 
a way to earn my own living. At least, I 
meant to tell him all that. He stopped me be- 
fore I got to the middle. wish you would 
not show yourself so ungrateful,’’ he said. ^^Be 
content to owe until you are called on to pay.” 
That was more than kind of him, but I cannot 
be content. Now that I am here I shall do my 
utmost to, at the least, keep my debt to him 
from growing much greater. 

Lessons I will not have, although I have al- 
most quarreled with him about it. We argued 
the point for an hour — it is the only subject 
upon which he speaks in the old, free way. 
But I held to my purpose so tenaciously he 
had to say, at last: ^Well, well, I give in to 
you! After all, what does it matter?” Tlien 
he almost ran away, leaving me more than 
ever puzzled. I have heard nothing from him 
since, save for a line scrawled on the slip about 
a package of bank notes which a messenger 
delivered. It was entirely characteristic: ^^To 
be broken and taken three times a day.” 

There are five hundred dollars in the pack- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


141 


age. Added to what I already owe him it 
makes my debt over a thousand. The amount 
almost appalls me — but no! I will not let it. 
Deering is no niggard. He helps free-handed, 
as he would like himself to be helped in need. 
Long before this last loan is exhausted I hope 
to be on my feet. Still, I cannot forget the 
very strange way he said: ^A"ou are dread- 
fully in need of lessons — from a new, a hard 
master.’’ I wonder what the saying can pos- 
sibly mean. 


CHAPTER XV. 


New York, June — . 

Perhaps I am finding out what Peering 
meant. Certainly I have had the hard les- 
sons. My money is two-thirds spent, and not 
one dollar have I earned. Worse, still; I am 
almost assured that it will be a long time be- 
fore I can begin earning, if, indeed, I ever do. 
That is, in ordinary commercial ways. I have 
tried everywhere to find something I could do 
marketably, or a market for something already 
done. Everywhere it is the same story — my 
work gives promise, but it is not up to the 
mark. How can I go in the face of such dis- 
couragement? Sometimes I spend hours be- 
fore my Vision, utterly unable to call up the 
looming heights, the immeasurable depths, the 
soft splendors, the ineffable glories it owns in 
my mind. 

The Vision is my last hope. If only I could 
have six months of calm to finish it! I work 
at it often through furious hours, only to find 
when next I look at it that it will take other 
hours to undo all I have wrongly done. I 
have no friendly counsellor now. Pride for- 
bids that I go to Deering. He has not come 
near me since the day I rejected his advice. 
If I went, he would say in chuckling triumph: 
^‘So you are willing to be made an artist, after 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


143 


all. O, yes; you may be a genius born, but 
the best of them have to be made after they 
are born. Be good, now, and humble, and 
contrite. Go to work under your masters, and 
don’t worry over things you cannot help.” 

Unless some good thing happens very soon 
I shall be forced to go to him. There is a 
plan nebulously in my mind. Perhaps he will 
not laugh at it if only I can summon courage to 
tell it to him fully. He has not forgotten me; of 
that I am sure. Christmas and at the new 
year he sent me beautiful gifts, not offensively 
costly, but so chosen as to show he knew and 
remembered my likings. They were very wel- 
come — how welcome one can only know who 
sits strange among strangers, with only casual 
surface friendliness in those about. 

One day in a shop I met Mrs. Deering face 
to face. The strangest impulse to speak, to let 
her know who I was, and what I wanted so 
much to do fell upon me then and there. If 
I had yielded to it, it is likely she would have 
thought me crazy. Her face says she is one 
who makes no allowance for moods. Still, it 
is not a bad face; only hard and vacuus, as 
I fancy her life must be. I fancy, too, had she 
married a man after her own mould and borne 
him children as hard and narrow and material 
as their two selves, she might have been very 
much happier. She is married, but mateless. 
Deering shows her all outside deference. She 
sits at his table, mistress, and is in consequence 


144 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


a social power. But she must miss something, 
even if she does not know that she misses it. 
He told me once the whole duty of a fashion- 
able woman^s husband was to pay his wife’s 
bills and show himself in her company once 
a fortnight through the half year. 

I have been working these last four days 
upon a set of menu cards. Even to such 
trifles have I tried to bend my talent. In a 
little while I shall go out with them. A dealer 
has promised to look at them and try to sell 
them to a wealthy patron. That is the nearest 
encouragement I have ever yet come. Who 
knows but the painted bits are to be my touch- 
stone? If I can live even in the simplest fash- 
ion by such things I shall keep on, work on, 
hope on; then when the Vision is done I shall 
sell it, though it will be like selling my life; 
pay my good, patient Deering — and go my 
ways, happy in the knowledge that if I am 

humble I am also independent. 

********** 

New York, Feb. — . 

It is a week since it all happened; longer 
than that, indeed, since it began. My hand 
shakes so it is a question if I can write intel- 
ligibly, yet I am calm and quiet now by con- 
trast with what I have been since the day 
when — but I must not let myself think of that 
first. Steady, Selene! You must understand 
that you have only yourself to look to now. 
That self must be cool, calm, passionless, or 
you will go under. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


145 


Now with my nerves tense I will try to say 
all I have to say briefly, so clearly I shall not 
be ashamed to read over the record in years 
to come. I know they will come. Death 
passes by unhappy souls to take those which 
revel in the happiness of full life. 

My last failure — how the shopmen laughed 
at my ragged masses of color on the cards — 
sent me to Deering, desperate but firm. I knew 
where I might find him in business hours, al- 
though I had never been in his office. As I 
entered it I saw him seated at a desk. He did 
not look up, but I knew he was somehow subtly 
aware of my presence. I saw his eyelids quiv- 
et the least bit, his mouth relax, then harden 
under his thick yellow mustache. As I came 
to the very edge of the desk he glanced up at 
me, nodded, and said, motioning me to the 
chair beside it: ^^Sit down. You have come to 
your senses?’’ 

‘^Because I have come here?” I returned, 
answering his question with another. Again 
he nodded: looked for you earlier, at least 

three weeks earlier,” he said, with a stealing 
smile. ^^Well, now that you are here, what 
is it?” 

His tone was cool but not unkindly; he spoke 
exactly as he might have spoken to a man 
whom he knew but slightly and did not care 
to know better. I blessed him inly for the 
carelessness of it. His face, too, was tranquil. 
He leaned a little back in his chair, and looked 


146 


IT HAPPENED. 


me full in the face. Then, seeing me glance 
at the young fellow who stood at a high desk 
back of himself, he half turned his head to 
say: ^^Go outside, Gatchel, and say I am en- 
gaged — for the next ten minutes. No; leave 
the door ajar. Be sure, though, I am not in- 
terrupted, and if you hear my bell call up Val- 
lery on the telephone. Vallery is my lawyer,’^ 
he explained, as the clerk vanished; ^^a good 
fellow, but freakish in some points. Now, 
madam, I am waiting for what you have to 
say.’’ 

^Tt is not much, and I do not know if I can 
say it very clearly,” I began. ^^Except the first 
part, you are right, I wrong. I do not know 
enough to make my own living. I am afraid 
the only way for you ever to get your money 
back is to — to let me spend some more of it.” 

^^How?” he said, speaking so low I hardly, 
caught the word. It came with a hard breath 
behind it; but even that did not warn me. I 
hurried on, huddling the words together: ‘T 
shall never do anything worth while until I 
know enough to finish the Vision. All the 
people I have been to seem to think there is 
something in me, but none of them can give 
me work to live by while I bring it out. 1 
thought — that is — hope you — you have been 
so kind already — that you will- — will let me 
go somewhere — to Paris, perhaps — where I 
can starve, and study — O, believe I shall not 
mind the starving! — until I learn to paint — 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


147 


really to paint, not to blotch and slur. If you 
will you shall be paid, if it takes half my life 
to earn the money — 

‘^Selene 

That was all he said, but it stopped me 
short. His eyes told me the rest even before 
he reached and caught my hand. You 

foolish Selene!’’ he said, laying his cheek upon 
the hand. ‘^Why do you waste your breath 
and my time in talking of money? You know 
— you have known all along — there could 
never be any question of it between us. If 
you insist that you owe mo — why, there is but 
one way to pay it. You know what that is. 
Money! Do not name the stuff! You shall 
have a thousand dollars to throw to the beg- 
gars — if only you will take it.” 

will not take it — upon your terms!” I 
cried, wrenching my hand from him and 
springing to njy feet. He, too, got up. 

advise you to keep cool,” he said; ^ffor 
your own sake, of course. I assure you that 
I have, so far as women are concerned, no rep- 
utation to lose.” 

I sank back, trembling all over, and cov- 
ered my face with my hands. I could feel the 
blood leaping in my cheeks; then suddenly 
rushing back to my heart in a mad, smother- 
ing tide. The very earth seemed to rock be- 
neath me. I had been so blind — I had trusted 
him, believed in* him so — even against his own 
warnings. 


148 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


After a little he went on: ^‘Be sensible, 
Selene! I am a bad lot, but it is not wholly 
a despicable badness. I wmuld not harm you — 
indeed, my wish is to help you. But I am a man, 
with one life to live — and just now you are 
somewhat essential to it. Accept what I can 
give you, and your future is secure. At a word I 
will settle u]3on you money enough to keep 
you in elegance so long as you live — and do it 
in such a way that you would never be com- 
promised. In every way I would be as careful 
of you. You shall stand before the world 
without spot or blemish. You are new here — 
almost wholly unknowm. If you choose you 
can figure, as an amateur artist, with an in- 
dependent income sufficient to provide you a 
small but handsome establishment. Once you 
are in it you wdll find a mighty difference, not 
only in your work, but in the way people look 
at it. ^Unto him that hath shall be given.’ 
That would be social truth if Scripture had 
never said it. Your position would be unques- 
tioned. Further, I have it in my power to put 
you in the way of knowing many people really 
worth while. There would never be any talk — 
those things can always be managed by one 
who knows how — ” 

^^And your wdfe?” I asked, looking him full 
in the eyes. My voice astonished me — it was 
so low and steady. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders the least bit. 

^^My wife!” he echoed. ^Aly wife would 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


149 


neither know nor care. Do not let your con- 
science hurt you on her account, Selene. In 
taking me you rob nobody who has a better 
right. Now, for years and years we have held 
our ways apart. And even if she knew, I 
think she would approve my taste — you are 
certainly an improvement upon the others.’^ 

^AVhat others?’’ It was all I could say. 
Again he gave the shrug, one shoulder rising 
a little above the other. 

^‘There are always others, my girl,” he said. 
‘^Best not know too much about them. But 
this I promise you: When you are mine you 
shall be supreme — for, at the least, six months. 
It may be longer, of course, but I do not bind 
myself. One never knows what may happen 
while the old planet is rolling around.” 

I had been looking over his head. Now I 
stood up and set my blazing eyes full on his 
face. ^^So that is what you have planned!” I 
said, my hands clinching. ^^And I thought you 
understood the sort of woman you were be- 
friending. Do you know, if I would take what 
you offer — if I would take anything in ex- 
change for my poor self — I could have had it 
all twdce over tw^o years ago — and the man I 
loved beside?” 

That man! I remember him! He let 
you have your own way there in the hills,” 
Deering said, carelessly. ^^Even then, Selene, 
I thought him a fool to do it. Let us not go 
into heroics over this. Kecognize, my young 


150 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


woman, that you are bound to be some man’s 
prey — why not mine rather than any other?” 

^That is what. he said — the man I loved!” I 
answered. Deering laughed — a hard laugh. 
^^So he was not such a fool, after all,” he said. 

forgot — then you had not tried your wings.” 

I sat down, shaking like a leaf. His last 
words brought back to me the horrible truth. 
I was hopelessly his debtor — for months I had 
existed upon his bounty. The weight of obli- 
gation seemed to crush — to stifle me. I flung 
up my hands, and let my head fall upon the 
edge of the desk, moaning out: Why are 

you so cruel! So very cruel! I never dreamed 
you could be so.” 

^^It is you who are cruel — to us both,” he 
said, trying to take my hand. I drew it away 
from him, and buried my face in it. Big, 
scalding tears forced themselves between my 
Angers. Deering drew me to him, and said, as 
he wiped them away : ^^The harder the shower 
the sooner it is over — but, Selene, let me beg 
you not to cultivate a knack of indulging thus 
in domestic hydraulics.” 

thought we were friends — comrades!” I 
moaned. ^Wou were so good to poor Brick — 
why will you not be as good to me?” 

^^Because you are a woman — and because, 
further, you have set up your will against 
mine,” Deering answered, promptly. ^^Brick, 
poor lad, never made that mistake. But I 
should not scold you, naughty girl that you 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


151 


are. The pleasure of subduing you is worth 
a very great deal.’’ 

dare say it will be — when it is yours,” I 
said, wrenching myself free of him. The sud- 
den fury that had fallen upon me brought a 
maniac’s strength. Big as he is, and well- 
muscled, I could have choked him then and 
there. My fingers ached with a murderous in- 
clination to close about his throat. I locked 
them behind me and hurried on. wonder at 
you — you seemed a man of discerning. You 
have seen me many times — I have not tried to 
mask from you what manner of woman I am — 
grateful, loyal, readily responsive to kindness, 
only to eager to put those who are my friends 
in the high niches and do them homage. If 
you were but the man I took you to be, then, 
indeed, I should have been in danger^ — not 
from you, for that man will never take advan- 
tage of any woman — but from my own heart. 
I might have loved you, in time, so entirely as 
to efface that other love and all consideration 
for myself. And then I might have come to 
you at your lightest bidding. I do not set my- 
self so austerely virtuous as to be beyond the 
tempting of human impulses. I wonder that 
you did not see it. I wonder that you were so 
blind — most of all, I wonder that you dared 
to think I would yield under compulsion.” 

^^You mean — you will not?” he asked, his 
brows drawing together, a sneering smile set- 
tling about his mouth. I bowed in silence. 
His frown deepened. 


152 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


^^How, then, do you mean to pay what you 
owe?^’ he asked. you make our relations 
only those of debtor and creditor I shall have 
to ask that you name some security for my 
claim.’^ 

‘‘I have my picture — but — but it is not fin- 
ished/’ I began, biting my lips to keep back 
a fresh flood of tears. He nodded coldly. 

was thinking of that,” he said. ^^It will 
suffice, but, of course, you must guarantee to 
finish it. In its present state it is — a stretch 
of canvas — neither more nor less,” 

will do it — though I do not see how I can 
— do it or die,” I said, getting up and turning 
toward the door. He stopped me, catching my 
arm in a vise-like grip. ^^Wait a minute!” he 
said. must save you from yourself — if you 
will let me. Do nothing rashly. Take time — 
three days, at least — to think over everything. 
At the end of them I will come to you — you 
had better not be seen here again. Do not 
look so alarmed. I am not coming alone. I 
shall bring Vallery. Whatever you decide on, 
the matter must be arranged in business fash- 
ion. I do not want to be harsh with you, Se- 
lene, but really the man you sent away was 
right. You are bound to turn men’s heads, 
wherever you may go. It is what such women 
are made for. No; it is not your face — not 
even your form — though both are divinely 
lovely. There is something beyond- — something 
that steals into a man whether or no, and 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


153 


makes him wild to possess you. Think of your 
position — alone, friendless, moneyless — if you 
persist in standing out against me. Think, 
too, that as I am, so are all other men — neither 
brutes nor demons — simply men. You can 
only live and work, or rather work to live by 
some man^s leave — he will make conditions be- 
fore granting it — take my word for that. And 
you can save yourself, shield yourself forever, 
by just one little word. At least, think well 
before you refuse to speak it.^’ 

will,’’ I said. ^^But do not think I shall 
change. I am going to ask God to give you 
a better mind.” Then I rushed away, with his 
low laugh sounding in my ears, like the laugh- 
ter of the Furies trebly sure of their prey. 

Once outside the nipping air refreshed and 
revived me. I had left him full of one mad 
thought — the river. I could hnd it, and in the 
darkness hide myself forever beneath its 
w^aters. With the sharp, electric west wind 
cutting my cheeks the cowardly purpose fled. 
I was alive to my Anger tips — I would live out 
my life. More, I would not sit down supine in 
the face of this fresh misfortune. Action was 
imperative. Before it I must have counsel. I 
clutched my purse tight, then opened it and 
looked at the roll of bills within. Deering’s 
money, I smiled to think, could not be better 
spent than in trying to balk his evil purpose. 
I saw clearly what that purpose was — to bind 
me in legal meshes, and, thus hampered, wear 
down my strength. My picture, he well knew. 


154 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


was more than life to me. All my hope, all 
my future, was staked on it. Controlling that 
he would be able to shut the last door of es- 
cape. He should not control it if there was 
any w^ay out of it — and there must be a way. 

I was in the lower city^s mazes — wholly 
strange to me. It was a dull day, raw and 
lowering. From many windows in the tall 
sky-scrapers there came the flare of gas and 
electric lights, though it was but three o^clock 
in the afternoon. I stepped within the re- 
volving doors of one especially tall structure, 
stood a minute, irresolute, then said to the 
watchman in uniform: want to find a good 

lawyer. Is there one in the building 

“^Steenth floor — room 1197,^’ he answered, 
waving me toward one of the smaller express 
cars. In a second it shot upward like a rocket. 
By the time I had fairly caught breath it 
stopped, well above surrounding roofs, the 
door was flung open, and the man in charge 
cried: ‘^Room 1197 — down the hall! To your 
right.’^ 

I did not look at the name on the door. It 
gave entrance to a very handsome suite of of- 
fices. ^^Say, a lady, a stranger, is in need of 
legal advice,^’ I said to the boy at the desk, 
waving my hand impatiently toward the inner 
spaces. Perhaps my wild look awed him. In 
a minute he came back, almost running, and 
said, holding open the door: ^This way, 
ma^am! — he’s in there — ^the boss himself.” 

I remember nothing more until I found my- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


155 


self seated in a big leather-cushioned chair, 
facing a man with the kindest eyes in the 
world. Still, they were keen eyes. I should 
never attempt to dissemble when they looked 
at me. His voice was deep but musical — the 
very sound of it soothed my edged nerves. He 
was beyond middle height, slender and alert- 
looking, with firm, capable hands, not over- 
soft, but supple and fine of line, well, even, 
and daintily kept. 

‘^How can I serve you, madam?’’ he asked, 
when I had stammered some sort of explana- 
tion of my presence. I was silent a half-min- 
ute before I answered: ^^By listening to what 
I must tell you and then telling me the exact 
truth. I am hard beset. No woman, I think, 
was ever more so. I have no friends, and but 
little money. Do not think, though, that I 
have come for charity — even charity advice — ” 
am not uneasy on that score,” he inter- 
rupted. ^^If you had not a cent you would be 
welcome to such help as my counsel might 
give. I am no Quixote — I do not profess to 
be better than my world. Indeed, I may fairly 
class myself among men of the world. Still, 
in all my life, I have loved just one woman 
and one little girl. They are my wife and my 
daughter. My mother died before my mem- 
ory. For her sake, for their sakes, I stand 
ready to help a woman whenever I can. Now, 
that we understand each other so far, please go 
on with what you have to say.” 

I told him, glazing nothing, keeping back 


156 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


only Dames. When I had finished he sat a 
minute in deep thought, then said slowly: 
am sorry, but I do not see how you will avoid 
taking the one course or the other that your 
creditor has indicated. Doubtless he seems to 
you very cruel, very despicable. I have noth- 
ing to offer in defense of him; but, my dear 
madam, it is the way of the world.’’ 

^^If I were your sister what would you ad- 
vise?” I burst out. He looked at me with a 
strange smile as he answered: ^That is un- 
supposable. I never had a sister. But — if the 
case concerned a woman who was anything to 
me I should never advise — I should simply 
kill the man.” 

^Wou have answ^ered me,” I said. He shook 
his head. ^^Remember, I advise nothing,” he 
said. ^^But as I think your mind is made up I 
will tell you your legal rights. Such transfers 
as your — creditor has asked are not very com- 
mon, but still a recognized form of security. 
Picture dealers sometimes take them — but,” as 
he saw my eyes brighten, ^^no dealer would 
care to take yours, for the reason that he would 
have to advance so large a sum before the 
transfer would be effectual. You are, by your 
own showing, wholly unknown, and but partly 
taught your chosen art. That would make the 
world say your creditor had been mag- 
nanimous in letting you go so deep in debt to 
him. You say he is to bring his lawyer with 
him. Then all I can add is, be certain you read 
and understand any instrument they may of- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


157 


fer you to sign. Read before you sign, have 
the signatures properly witnessed, then trust 
to providence. I am sure some way will open 
to you. No, no!’’ as he saw me unclasping my 
purse. “Keep whatever you have in hand. 
My claim may wait better days — without se- 
curity. Do not be too much depressed, either, 
over this transfer. The man who holds it may 
have sinister motives in demanding it, but it 
will prove a barrier to him, a shield to you. 
You have put him in a coldly commercial 
light — it will be henceforth beyond his power 
to injure you. As to studying, you can do that 
here at almost no cost. It is possible I may 
help you that way after a little — I have friends 
who look after undeveloped talent such as 
yours seems to be. Let me have your address. 
I will write — ” 

“I cannot give an address,” I said. “At 
least, not one that wdll be valid a week hence. 
I am going away from all I know or ever saw 
or heard of in the city — going to bury myself 
in its obscurest quarter — until I can feel my- 
self again a free woman.” 

“You love your picture?” he asked. 

“More than my life,” I said. He looked a 
little troubled. “I could never advise a woman 
to her hurt,” he said; “but, after all, in your 
case, I am uncertain what you really should 
do.” 

“I am not,” I said. “Nor do I think you are. 
You are only uneasy as to whether I have 


158 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


really the strength to endure cold and starva- 
tion because of the choice I make.^’ 

^‘You are right/’ he said, with a smile in his 
eyes. It did not reach the lips, yet his whole 
face was illumined. When I turned to go he 
walked beside me to the door, and said, as he 
shook my hand: ^^Keep your courage up! 
When that goes, everything goes.” 

As I went down the swiftly dropping car 
seemed to beat out the rythm of an old, old 
song I have heard a little German shoemaker 
sing. He lived just across from the library — 
Barcelona’s library. By the way, I cannot 
realize now that Barcelona and the library 
ever existed. This was the song — its iteration 
used often to half madden me. It came back 
as insistently while I made that percipitous 
passage eart Ward : 

“Goods-gone— something gone, 

Must bend to the oar, 

And earn thee some more. 

Honor gone— much gone; 

Must go and gain glory. 

Then the idle gossips 
Will alter their story. 

Courage gone— all gone; 

Better not have been born.’’ 

So the old man sang^ — sometimes in soft, 
half lisping German; oftener in the rough and 
rugged English version. I had not thought of 
him — of his song — since the day I left Barce- 
lona in that first fiight. Yet now a stranger’s 
word, so strangely spoken, had brought them 
both back as clear as daylight. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


I eau write only briefly of those three days. 
No inquisitor, not Torquemada himself, ever 
devised a torment so exquisite. In the watches 
of the night, through my broken sleep, Earle 
came to me, smiling and mocking me. ^^You 
would not take love,^’ I heard him say, ^^be- 
cause in your pride you said love meant shame. 
Now you have bread of shame thrust on you. 
You knew how it would be. I warned you; 
yet you would not listen.’’ 

Or else he looked at me in horror, saying: 
‘^You — you are not Selene! You have only 
stolen her eyes to lure men to the devil.” Then 
I woke up, shrieking, my face bathed in icy 
sweat. Earle, if ever I made you suffer, you 
are avenged a hundred fold in those long hours 
of anguish. I wonder now that I lived through 
them — that I did not run out into the night 
and plunge into icy waters. Something with- 
held me — something outside myself. I was 
spent, broken, so spiritless at times that I even 
speculated dully if, after all, it would not be 
better to give in to Deering’s will. 

^‘You will be warm always — you can keep 
away from the eyes of the world. You know 
you hate them, starmg, peering, calculating, 
forever alert to spy out a flaw,” I told myself 
at such times. ‘^And you can give days and 


160 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


nights to the Vision. It is all you have to live 
for. Why not sacrifice all that it may be 
worthily wrought?’’ 

No answer would come to the question. Only 
a dead, blank horror rose and wrapped my fac- 
ulties. Sometimes it numbed them — I even 
felt calm and quiet. Then in a little the pall 
lifted and all my soul bruises began to ache 
and throb and cry out in pain. I looked in the 
glass, and hated my face, hated my eyes for 
their soft fire, and the curl of the lashes about 
them. Then the thought would sweep down: 
^Wou are an anachronism — one of nature’s 
mistakes. She designed you for a throne, 
where you could have ruled men as of right 
and been guarded by armies of your lieges!” 
After that I would cry out over my own folly — 
such rank, idiotic folly, bred, no doubt, by the 
memory of Semiramis and Earle’s wild, wor- 
shiping words. 

Ah, me! A woman born with the trick of 
fascination in her eyes, needs to be married by 
the time she is out of short frocks. If John 
had been spared to me I might never have 
known the full glory of existence — true love 
is its flower and crown — but I should certainly 
have missed knowing humiliation bitterer than 
death. 

All those three days the weather had low- 
ered angrily. That last night the clouds gath- 
ered into a howling, shrieking snowstorm. 
At morning it still snowed. Even the city’s 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


161 


grime was hidden in pure and spotless white. 
I looked out on it with a calm as frozen. All 
my unrest, all my tremors had fled. So had 
my healthy color. My whole countenance was 
as waxen as the petals of a camelia. There 
were some deep red roses upon my table. I 
knew who sent them when they came the even- 
ing before, yet had not the heart to fling them 
out into the storm. I lifted a full-blown one 
and buried my lips in it. The reflection of it 
was like a blood stain, yet I smiled to see it. 

rose! Sign of silenceT’ I said in my heart. 
^Tledge me silence, indeed, for this day, when 
I must walk through a fiery furnace.’’ 

At breakfast people exclaimed over my pal- 
lor, but I smiled them aside. It was no crude 
and vulgar outcry^ — we are a select company 
here in this family hotel. As I left the break- 
fast room the housemaster drew me a little 
aside. have had a message from Mr. Deer- 
ing. It says he will be here about eleven to 
see you on business. I have reserved the small 
parlor. Will it suit you to see him there?” 

^Terfectly!” I said, walking steadily away. 
A sudden fancy siezed me to put on my wid- 
ow’s weeds. I have kept them, why I know 
not. Mother made me promise not to wear 
black for her, so they have lain in lavender, 
untouched, almost as fresh as new, at the very 
bottom of my largest trunk. The gown was 
almost outgrown, but when it was fastened 
made me look wonderfully slender and girlish. 


162 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


It comes high about the throat and is swathed, 
almost smothered, in crepe. Over it I put my 
widow’s bonnet and sweeping veil, then 
glanced at myself with a little cry. I had lost 
fifteen years. The same girl looked out at me 
who had first put on that trailing sable ves- 
ture, and wondered, almost childishly, that 
though she wore a widow’s garb her heart was 
the heart of a child. 

The small parlor is a nook of warm, dull 
reds. It never looked more attractive than by 
contrast with the white whirl outside. There 
is a gas grate. Its leaping light played here 
and there, setting up tricksy shadows and still 
more tricksy gleams. Deering stood looking 
down at it, a hard, insolent smile on his face. 
There was another man back of him. I could 
not see him clearly for the big bulk of my tor- 
mentor. As he caught the sound of .trailing 
garments he turned half about. The sight of 
me astounded him. With a bound almost he 
reached my side, took both my hands in his, 
and asked: ^^Selene! Mrs. Barber! What 
have you done to yourself?” Then, over his 
shoulder: ^^Oh, Vallery, let us have a minute 
together. The thing is not fully arFanged yet.” 

I did not look up. My ears alone told me the 
other man had stepped outside the door. Deer- 
ing still held my hands. ^^How dare you to 
be so wicked?” he said. 

^^How dare you be so wicked?” I flung back 
at him. He laughed in his throat. ^^I dare 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


163 


anything — to gain my ends/’ he said; 
then, his voice suddenly softening till it wa& 
like a caress: ^^You are so strangely, so dia- 
bolically enchanting this morning I feel I 
would rather kill you than let you go. Be a 
good child — you will be glad of it — so glad — 
once the plunge is over. No — you need not 
speak — only press my hand the least little bit 
— and I shall know I have won — then Vallery 
can come in and make his big-wig law talk. 
You shall have your settlements all secure be- 
fore you give me even so much as one kiss.” 

I snatched away my hands. ^^You need not 
have waited. You had my answer three days 
ago,” I said. He fell back a step and looked 
me over coldly, with cruel, wolfish eyes, but 
said no word for a minute. Then : 

^^In that case — oh, Vallery! We are ready 
for you now.” As the door opened I raised my 
eyes and saw my unknown kindly counsellor. 
He looked at me with a sort of whimsical 
amazement. Certainly he had never guessed 
that he had been called into a case where the 
opposing person was his own friend and client. 

^^Mr. Vallery, Mrs. Barber!” Deering said, in 
his finest, most artificial manner. He bowed, 
but did not offer to shake hands. Vallery 
pulled a folded paper from his pocket and 
handed it to Deering, who passed it on to me 
with a sardonic smile. My hand shook so that 
when I attempted to unfold it, it fell and was 
almost drawn into the fiame of the grate. Both 


164 : 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


men bent to rescue it. As he rose Deering 
gave me a meaning glance, and said, under 
his breath: ^That is what ought to be done 
with it — it should be burnt before all our 
eyes.’’ 

“You have my permission to burn it— if you 
can trust sufficiently to my word,” I answered. 
He looked at me half in doubt. “If I burn it, it 
means — surrender,” he said, in the same 
hushed key. I shook my head faintly. The 
room, the people in it, all began to swim. 
Rallying myself desperately, I walked to the 
table upon which stood pen and ink, sat down 
beside it and held out my hand for the paper. 

Slowly, carefully, conscientiously, I read it — 
every line. Not one w^ord penetrated my numb 
comprehension; but, thank God, Deering did 
not dream that was the fact. I felt his eyes 
devouring me as I read. I felt, too, Vallery’s 
gaze of infinite compassion. Presently I laid 
down the instrument and looked up at him with 
a question in my eyes. I saw his lips shape 
inaudibly: “You had better sign it. It is the 
only way.” 

I spread out the paper, dipped my pen sav- 
agely in the ink-well, and tried to write my 
name. In vain! The pen fell from my nerve- 
less fingers and rolled upon the carpet. As 
Vallery stooped to give it back to me he said 
in my ear: “Sign! Sign quick! The quicker 
the better!” 

I tried hard to obey him. Somehow it 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


165 


seemed to me I must obey, no matter what 
he had said. But still my fingers refused their 
office — I could not shape a letter, try as I 
might. In despair I glanced up at Deering — 
he was watching me still with those hungry, 
devouring eyes. The sight made me desperate 
— I felt that I must scream if I had to endure 
his oversight through another minute. I be- 
gan to write — a big, bold, black S stared me 
in the face. Suddenly a realization of what 
I was doing — of the long, losing, hopeless fight 
I was binding myself to undertake — rushed 
over me and made me fall back in the chair, 
white and shaking, gasping out: ^^Kill me, if 
you choose; but if I must live, leave me my 
picture!’^ 

Actually I was begging — begging of this 
man from whom I had felt it would be degra- 
dation to take hereafter even a crust. He 
sprang to my side, saying, thickly: do not 

want to be harsh with you, Selene. I will not 
be unless you compel me.’’ 

Vallery came suddenly between us. ^^Ex- 
cuse me, but you two can arrange these per- 
sonal matters at your leisure,” he said. ^^As 
I have to get away soon please get through 
with the business of signing, so I can get 
through with the attesting. Mrs. Barber, let 
me write the name, since you are so nervous. 
I will put underneath it Ter V. in the pres- 
ence of both parties to the agreement above 


166 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


written, by direction of the said Selene Bar- 
ber,’ and no court on earth can ever upset it.” 

^^Thank you!” I said, gratefully. Deering 
looked black as a thunder cloud. But he took 
the paper as soon as Vallery had finished with 
it, and slipped it into his pocket before he 
came up to me. Then he said, trying to take 
my hand: ^^Eemember, Selene, I give up — 
nothing. Holdfast is the dog that wins, no 
matter how long the chase.” 

The rest is a great, blank darkness. Today 
I seem to be getting into a sort of gray twi- 
light. Tomorrow — what of tomorrow? Fate, 
perhaps, can answer. I certainly cannot. 


Book 

THE MAN WHO DID. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Vallery Writes: 

x 

New York, March — . 

My Dear Bolton: 

Thanks for not disappointing me, old man. 
I was pretty sure my real romance, with a 
coincidence so strange as to stagger belief 
thrown in, would interest you more than a lit- 
tle. You see, I have not forgotten your taste 
for stories* real stories, the human comedies 
and tragedies that are so much stranger and 
more moving than those which get on the 
stage. Because of the taste I shall think it^s 
a pity you took to making things instead of 
the law. True, you have incidentally piled up 
a few surplus millions, but what are millions 
in comparison with seeing quite to the bottom 
of things, as is a lawyer’s troublesome privi- 
lege. 

I fear I am going to find it troublesome — 
no end. Our mutual friend Deering, who is a 
mighty profitable client and a pretty general 


168 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


good fellow, can be an unconscionable scoun- 
drel when it comes to women. His wife, of 
course, excuses something. A man would 
have to be superhuman if, tied to her, he did 
not permit himself compensations. It is Ouida, 
I believe, who comments upon the uselessness 
of jewels with which Faust tempts Marguer- 
ite — ^the Marguerites, in her opinion, being all 
too ready to go the limit without them. Ouida 
has a way of putting unwholesome truths 
about men and women between the covers of 
her books. Because this is truth even more 
than because it is .unwholesome, I must con- 
demn my client, Deering, for seeking not 
merelj to tempt, but to compel this unwilling 
Marguerite. 

Still, I do not wholly blame him. The woman 
is a real ox-eyed Juno, and Deering, as Master 
Charles Reade puts it, ‘^the male of her spe- 
cies.’’ Certainly he is wild about her — wilder 
than about all his twenty previous loves. In- 
deed, I doubt if he felt for the whole of them 
one-tenth of what he is now feeling for her. 
Of course, he is a very Turk for jealousy of 
her. My greatest fear is that some day, in an 
unguarded moment, she may precipitate a trag- 
edy. She is, it is true, neither a fool, nor a 
child. I judge she must be thirty if she is a 
day. But she has the most provoking lack of 
comprehension of the equation of the sex. 
Deering was unselfishly kind to a man who 
was in much her own case — had artistic ca- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


169 


pabilities lacking development — and she either 
cannot or will not understand why he is not as 
unselfishly helpful to her. 

Right there lies the problem of modern 
times. But we won’t discuss it now. I 
am telling you a story; not indulging 
in philosophical disquisitions. This story is 
halting to the outward eye, yet, I doubt not, 
making swift progress toward the inevitable 
end. The woman has gone away from her fine, 
select quarters — she is living in the barest, 
narrowest little room now — and she has just 
one hundred dollars — Deering’s dollars, at 
that — between her and starvation. In fact, I 
dare say she is half starving now, pinching 
and saving to eke them out until she can in 
some fashion not wholly despicable earn more. 
She would make a magnificent model, but I 
fancy there are mighty few men who could 
look into her eyes and name the matter to her. 

For she has the most irritating, the most ir- 
rational innocence in her gaze. It kept Deering 
at bay for rising a year. With almost any 
other woman he would have come to the point 
in a month. And even now, when he is so sore 
and mad over it all, I think that same irra- 
tional innocence will protect her from any- 
thing more at his hands than the assault of 
circumstances. That is, I think he will not 
lift a hand to keep her from getting on, any 
more than he will lift a hand to help her to 
do it. He is waiting — waiting for the pressure 


170 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


of civilization to force her into his arms. And 
because, in his own mind, he plays thus fairly, 
it will go very hard with any man who steps 
in to thwart him — and circumstances. 

Yet I have a great mind to be that man. 
That is really the point of this swift answer 
to your letter. You are, I think, the whitest 
fellow I have ever known. You know me — my 
prospects, capabilities, obligations — better 
than I know^ them myself. You know, too, 
what it means if Deering is put against me. 
His own business is very considerable, and he 
has it in his power to throw me very much 
more. So far he has thrown a large part of it, 
which I have managed so satisfactorily there 
is every likelihood that I may get the whole of 
it. Then, too, he has backed me socially to a 
gratifying degree. It is through his putting 
me up that I have got an early entrance to at 
least two of the city’s most influential clubs, 
and clubs, I do not need to tell you, are tre- 
mendous helps when a man aspires, as I do, 
to the handling of great concerns. 

Now, in the face of all this; in face, too, of 
the duty I owe myself and my dear and ambi- 
tious wife — what do you say? Am I justifled 
in following out my natural impulse to put 
this woman, who is the most casual of chance 
acquaintances, with no shadow of claim on me 
beyond the common human claim, in the way 
of making her own living and thereby making 
an enemy of Deering? If another man asked 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


171 


me in cold blood the question I have asked 
you I should tell him he was a fool to risk so 
much. But, somehow, I cannot get that wom- 
an’s irrationally innocent eyes out of my mind. 
They haunt me. In fact, more than once they 
have come between me and the consideration 
of a knotty legal point. I must in some way 
get rid of them. I must either help her or for- 
get that she exists. Which shall it be? 

Before answering consider also this point: 
So far, as you know, all women have been to 
me pretty muoh the same — saving always my 
dearest wife. Ours has been an ideal union — 
we have been ten years married without one 
single disagreement that a quick kiss could not 
heal. She suits and satisfies me to the utmost. 
I am proud of Tier grace and charm — of her 
sweet, wholesome, clear-headed practicality. 
If I ever succeed as I hope, it will be very much 
her doing. She is in every sense a help-meet. 
More than that, her tact, her thrift, her pretty 
ways, the charming home she makes for me^ — 
all, all are potential in many ways. I shall 
never be less than her lover, ardent and true. 
Notwithstanding, there is something in this 
other woman that stirs me as I have never be- 
fore been stirred. You see, I am legal enough 
to make no reservations in stating my case. A 
man is the worst sort of fool who does not tell 
his lawyer- judge neither more nor less than 
the exact truth. While I am as certain as of 


172 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


my existence that nothing could ever imperil 
my wife’s supremacy,^ I have a strong, almost 
fearful doubt that if I see too much of the 
Juno I may find myself in a frame of mind and 
body my conscience will be very far from ap- 
proving. 

Now, answer! Answer quick! I can help 
Mrs. Barber in a perfectly honest and business- 
like way. It seems desperately cruel to re- 
frain, and desperately dangerous to do it. 
Help me with my puzzle as only such a white, 
good fellow can. Remember, I am not among 
the persons who ask advice solely that in case 
of things going wrong they may have some- 
body else to blame. 

The nature of this letter will excuse the lack 
of my wife’s usual pretty messages. She is well 
— so is the girl, who says she means to grow 
big enough to be your sweetheart. I know she 
would send you a kiss if she knew I was writ- 
ing. As to me, you have known this long, long 
time that I was always 

Yours to count on, 

FRANCIS M. VALLERY. 


(Telegram.) 

Milltown, 111., March — . 
Francis M. Vallery, New York City: 

Letter received. The man who won’t help 
a woman whenever he can, as much as he can, 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


173 


as quick as he can, is not worth damning. Go 

ahead. D is not the only man in the world 

w hose concerns need looking after. If you lose 
any business call on me to make good. Write 
particulars in full as soon as there is anything 
to write. But be sure to act at once — this last 
is italics. Yours, etc., BOLTON. 


CHAPTEE XVIII. 


Selene Writes: 

New York City, March — . 

There is not room for even confidence here in 
this cramped place, still, I shall talk a bit 
with my one confidante and see if talking will 
in any way relieve the strain of these endless 
days. It is two weeks now since I left the 
hotel — to become a very big and very helpless 
sister of the poor. At least, that is the way I 
seem to myself. The odd thing is — I cannot 
realize that I myself am of the poor — worse 
than poor, indeed, in that I am deeply in debt. 

O, me! That is the thought, the memory 
that poisons all my days, makes my nights 
sleepless and so w’eights the wings of my fancy 
I work only by the greatest effort. Yet that 
can make little difference in the final settle- 
ment. I must starve — or give in to Deering. 
Every day makes me surer and surer of that. 
I have walked until my feet are blistered look- 
ing for work. I even thought I would be a 
housemaid — I was too honest to try for a 
cook^s place, since I know nothing of the 
work. I can clean a room and make it pretty, 
more than pretty, indeed, if I have the chance. 
But I shall never have it. Three applications 
have convinced me of that fact. The first 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


175 


woman stared at me with languid insolence 
and shrugged her shoulders when I said I had 
never ‘dived out before.’’ am sure as I can 
be she is a criminal,” I heard her say in a loud 
whisper to her daughter. Then to me: ^^You — 
er- — will not suit at all. In fact, you are — are 
too big for the rooms — we like things har- 
monious, you see.” 

The next of my prospective mistresses was, 
I judge, a semi-invalid. She sat propped amid 
cushions, and after the first glance turned her 
eyes away, saying, fretfully: ^^You will never, 
never do for me^ — you are too overpowering. 
You oppress me.” As I bowed myself away 
the maid who had let me in said, with a wink: 
^^You had oughter come when the master’s 
round about. He’d a-given you a show — he 
has an eye for a good figger.” 

The last — ah, me! I have hardly the heart 
to write on. It does not seem to me this can 
possibly be Selene Barber who has been creep- 
ing in at area doors, begging humbly for a 
chance to earn a menial’s bread! The last 
woman might have given me a trial if I would 
have agVeed to bring her a letter from my pas- 
tor. I told her he lived a long way off. Then, 
after the manner that very good people ap- 
pear to think it is their privilege to torture 
their dependents, she set to work questioning 
me — as to my home, my bringing up, the whys 
and wherefores of my gjoing in service. I par- 
ried as best I might, watching all the while 


176 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


her mouth grow grim and grimmer. It did 
not in the least astonish me when she said: 
^^It is evident you have some shameful story 
to hide. I can never take into my employ any 
sly and tricky person who refuses to be frank 
with me. No. It is not your appearance 
wholly which tells against you. Nowadays 
servants all aspire to look as much like mis- 
tresses as possible. If you had told me the 
truth I might have helped you. As it is I can- 
not reconcile it with my Christian duty to give 
you employment.’’ 

Afterward I understood. The lady is almost 
a professional philanthropist. All her life she 
has had so much that she cannot conceive the 
possibility of anyone less fortunate ever being 
tempted. I am glad she shut her doors on me. 
If she had taken me I should have felt in honor 
bound to stay through my allotted time, and 
it could not have failed to be a period of tor- 
ture. Whatever comes I am free — save in one 
quarter. 

My money wastes away like snow in sun- 
shine, though I hold to each penny with a grip 
like death. I have tried to strike a fair bar- 
gain with myself on behalf of my creditor. 
Half of each day I give to working on the 
Vision; the other half to trying to earn a liv- 
ing. My creditor was sharp. He stipulated 
that I should not remove the canvas without 
due notice to him. Thus he makes sure of me, 
of knowing where I am, and of knowing easily 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


177 


whatever I may undertake. I cannot bring 
the Vision here. The whole room is not big 
enough for it. So I have left it in the studio 
where it was begun. That adds materially to 
the cost of living, but what else can I do? If 
only I were a man I would go and live in the 
studio itself. I am strongly tempted to do it, 
anyway. True, nobody stays in the building 
except by daylight; but what would that mat- 
ter to me, once I was safe behind locks and 
bars? 

Yes! The more I think of it the better does 
that plan appear. As to eating — I am a 
frightfully hearty animal, but I shall master 
my appetite and bring it within reasonable 
bounds. Bread and water, even, can be tempt- 
ing — if one is but hungry enough. Counting 
as close as I may, I have enough to keep from 
starving for two months ahead. Practically 
it is one month in which to work for myself. 
I will do something each day to the Vision, if 
it is no more than to stand despairingly in 
front of it and realize its faults. 

I must have more lessons. How to get them 
is a problem. The classes are all made up now 
— there will be no new ones until fall, except 
the summer schools, which are as hopeless in 
my present condition as entrance to the gates 
of heaven. I have haunted the dealers until 
they shy at sight of me, yet now and again 
they look at something and say, as they give it 
back. ^Tf you knew how — 


178 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


They do not go farther; they have no need. 
I understand only too well that deprecating 
shrug and carelessly pitying glance. Once I 
would have resented both bitterly; now I am 
callous to things so slight. Yesterday some- 
thing happened that gave me a keen twinge. 
Friday is, after all, the proper day for ill-luck. 
I had just shown a little new sketch — which 
is truly not half bad. It is a simple, simple 
thing — only a blur of purple distances with a 
gray, craggy rock standing out against them, 
and at the side of it a plume of waving golden 
rod. Of course, it is from nature — one of the 
things I roughed in there in the days before 
Brick died. The dealer looked at it, then liar- 
rowdy at me. I think the desperate eagerness 
in my eyes gave him his cue. He handed back 
the sketch, saying: ^^O, it is — what shall I 
say — decorative? But we w^ant art. Ma’am! 
Art! Nothing else will our public have.” I 
turned to go, when another wonaan dashed at 
him- — dashed is the proper word, she moved 
strictly in that way. She was youngish, and 
very rosy, with fluffy, brown hair, and had 
made herself a picture in moss-green frock and 
cape. She had diamonds, too, on her Angers, 
and a gold-tipped arrow thrust through her 
beff-eater hat. Altogether, she was very ra- 
diant, very prosperous-looking, and full of ba- 
byish wiles. She smiled up at the dealer, and 
made little soft clucks of impatience while he 
ran through the half a dozen things in her 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


179 


portfolio. At the end he flung back one of 
them, saying, with a pretense of a frown: 
^^No, no! Miss Carfax! I positively cannot 
pay good money for that thing. These others 
now — well, how much do you want for them? 
Remember, I am not going to bankrupt my- 
self, as I did the last tinie./^ 

Airily she named a price that simply made 
me stare. Maybe I am no fair judge, but her 
work was ragged, no bit better drawn than 
mine, and nothing like so well colored. But 
she got what she asked, after a little haggling, 
and went away, looking daggers at me for 
having presumed to linger until the transac- 
tion was complete. When she had gone I 
plucked up courage to ask: ^Tf I did some- 
thing in that line?^^ 

^^O! Quite impossible!^’ said the dealer. ^^Be- 
sides, even if you could, we could not buy 
them — as matters stand. You — you have no- 
body back of you — nobody who will go about 
in public asking: ^Seen those things of Mrs. 
Barber’s down at La Quelle’s? Great, aren’t 
they? That woman has a future.’ Then you 
have not the people who come to buy, because 
they know Miss Carfax sells here. No, they 
are not her friends, but she has friends these 
others want to please. Oh, she is a young 
wmman who will get on anywhere. She is 
making herself a public name even before she 
is an artist. Oh, yes; it is possible she may 
never be an artist, but she will live, she will 
thrive — she has no need of money.” 


180 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I, too, might have no need of money! Cyn- 
ically, I am sometimes almost tempted to make 
a trial of myself — not as an applicant, but a 
proud and haughty amateur. Deering seems 
to have known his world very well. How T 
wish he could have known me as well! What 
misery I might have escaped! I will try to 
do him justice. Bad as he is, he is not wholly 
so. If he had never let himself think of me 
as — as what he would have me be, I am sure 
we might still be excellent friends. As it is, I 
have aroused his two strongest forces — desire 
and the impulse of mastery. It is with him 
somewhat as it was with Earle — in refusing 
to become what he would have me be I have 
made myself doubly the object of his desire.' 

It is odd how often we meet nowadays, bow 
gravely, and pass on unsmiling. I cannot un- 
derstand it. Heretofore such encounters were 
rare. Perhaps it is because of Lent — society 
turns itself around in all things then, I hear, 
and goes about to see the things it has left 
for the penetential season. Pictures are, I 
suppose, among them. Yesterday, after my 
encounter with Carfax, I ran across Deering 
with three other men of his sort. There were 
as many women in the party. They were do- 
ing the art stores, it appears. Two of the 
women were from out of town, and the third, 
who is Deering’s distant cousin, their hostess 
and chaperone. After I had passed, returning 
Deering^s bow with my best society inclination 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


181 


of the head, I felt them all turn and stare after 
me, and caught a subdued babble of comment, 
though no word of it was distinct. I could 
fancy, too, that if he had said of me what Miss 
Carfax’s friends no doubt say of her in like 
case there would have begun for me a ripple 
of reputation that might in the end have Ifad 
desirable results. 

Please the good Lord, one day Deering 
shall be proud to have me recognize him and 
to speak in my praise if he speaks at all. On 
the face of things that seems hopeless, yet I 
have not wholly lost either hope or faith. I 
must confess, though, both are often at low 
ebb — so low that, though I have wanted this 
ever so long to go to church, I have not done 
it. Ever since mother — but I will not go back 
to that. There was a girl in the hotel, a girl 
with a voice, who, perhaps, must answer for 
my staying so steadily away from the sanctu- 
ary. She herself went regularly. ^^Why, you 
cannot afford to stay away !” she said to me one 
day in amazement at my home-keeping Sun- 
days. ^^Do you not know it is the church people 
who really help one to get on? They look out 
for one, especially a stranger who comes regu- 
larly, and thus you get in the way of letting it 
be known how you can be helped without the 
least loss of dignity. Of course, the sermons 
are a bore — and those missionary meetings 
and things just fearful. But by singing at 
one of them I got three parlor engagements. 


182 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I wish I could go to two churches — alternate 
Sundays, you know — but Christians are real 
beasts for selfishness. If you do not stick to 
one set all the time you will get nothing from 
them whatever.’’ 

After that I would not go, for fear I might 
be^ thought as sordid as she. I cannot bring 
myself to make God’s house a market place, 
nor His day one on which I must look out for 
material advancement. ^^Remember the Sab- 
bath day to keep it holy,” runs the command- 
ment. I do try, in my poor, imperfect Way, to 
keep it holy, putting evil thought and troubles 
far away from me, and meditating on the un- 
searchable riches, the unspeakable glories of 
God and heaven. It may be I am in the wrong. 
At any rate, I have so far mastered my pride — 
there is an unconscious and pharasaical pride 
that one is not just as other people — I have, I 
say, so mastered my pride that in the morn- 
ing I shall put on my black clothes, take my 
little, worn prayer book, and steal away to 
church. 

The very thought of it is soothing. I shall 
revel in the organ harmonies, and feast my 
eyes upon the rich lights through the windows 
even before the sermon begins. God grant 
that it may hold for me some special word of 
comfort. Lone sparrow upon a housetop that 
I am, I yearn to be less alone. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


New York, March — . 

Let me try to be, beyond all things, just. 
Truth is the best aid to justice, therefore I 
shall write down exactly what happened. 

Sunday morning I awoke, rested, refreshed, 
even, by the reflex action of my resolve. It was 
a clear morning — the sky of that clean, hard, 
brilliant blue that belongs to a March morn- 
ing after a night of frost. My flrst conscious 
thought was a prayer. I had resolved to fast 
until evening, so no sloth of flesh might cum- 
ber my waking spirits. A certain exaltation 
possessed me. I was not conscious of cold nor 
hunger as I walked out into the streaming 
sunshine. The bells were already chiming. O, 
the tender, the sublime invitation of their 
pealing! Almost I heard in it the old, familiar 
words : 

“Jesus, lover of my soul, 

Let me to Thy bosom fly! 

While the nearer waters roll, 

While the tempest still is nigh . 

All my trust on Thee is stayed. 

All my help from Thee I bring; 

Cover my defenseless head 
With the shadow of Thy wing.” 

And, listening, my burden seemed to slip 
away, my heart to sing for joy. Like one in 
a happy dream I followed the chimes until 


184 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


they led me to a portal of purest Gothic, richly 
carved and fretted, as was the slender, spring- 
ing spire. A throng of devout worshipers 
poured through the door. There was no wan-, 
dering glance, no intrusive speech to mar the 
holy hush of a holy time and place. Rever- 
ently I bent my head and went in with them. 
At the threshold I paused the least bit. Slight 
as the pause was, it marked me for what I 
was — a pilgrim and a stranger. Instantly a 
kindly hand touched my arm, a kindly voice 
said: ^^There are family sittings here, but all 
seats are free, all comers welcome.^^ 

Still, I hesitated a little. The man who had 
spoken to me waved me forward. Very shortly 
I found myself seated less than a dozen pews 
from the pulpit, in a softly cushioned space, 
beside a pair of richly but quietly dressed 
women, whose faces said they did not resent 
my presence. But one of them Jiad the look 
of a corpse. The spring sunshine through the 
purple border of a south window poured a 
flood of ghastly radiance full upon her. 

I barely glanced at her. Her companion I 
saw only as one sees a lay flgure. The whole 
rich interior w^as entering into my soul. It 
was so full of color and beauty and the atmos- 
phere of holy devotion. Up above the great 
organ pealed, flooding nave and chancel with 
quivering harmony. The flowers upon the pul- 
pit seemed to tremble in the joy of it, and all 
the glorious light-colors to dance in tune. My 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


185 


heart leapt up to dance with them, the while 
it was murmuring inly: ^^Blind! O, blind and 
ingrate! All this might have been yours — the 
gift of God’s children — and you have kept 
rebelliously away!” 

I sank back against my cushions full of 
happy tremors that almost overran my brim- 
ming eyes. I resolved upon the instant to let 
myself go — to drop the armor of suspicion — 
of coldness, w^herewith I had girded myself, 
and go back to the old way — to trust and be- 
lieve hopefully, as the old Selene Barber, the 
girl who is so dead, had believed. 

Presently, the chanting choir boys came in 
white-robed procession, scattering incense 
about the high altar. Once it would have 
seemed to me mere meaningless mummery. In 
my present mood I understood — it was the 
ritual of sacrifice and oblation made for all 
our sins, that life here and hereafter may be 
full of hopeful light. Every sound, every 
waft of the censer, came straight home to me. 
By the time the minister arose to speak I was 
as responsive as a wind harp to the wind. 

“Glory! Glory! Glory ! Lord 
God Almighty! 

I read upon the sounding board above the 
high lectern. The arch of it seemed to my 
eyes like a halo about his head — a beneficent 
halo, full of cheer for the sorrowful. He 
prayed with power that seemed the power of 


186 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


God himself. It thrilled me, filled me with 
a happiness so new, so strange, so wonderful, I 
bowed my head to hide the tears that welled 
over and rolled down my cheeks. 

Text nor sermon I cannot set down, even in 
outline. When he read the last word of his 
set discourse he folded the written sheets, 
dropped them and leaned far over the pulpit 
to say something further. ^^The meaning of 
Christ,’’ he said, ^fis love — is fellowship. Fel- 
lowship does not stand afar off. Instead, it 
comes close, it stretches out the hand, it in- 
vites you to share your burden with it, to let 
it ease you when you are over-spent. O, my 
brethren, there are more uses for hands than 
holding, and striking blows, and working the 
world’s works, and gripping the world’s 
wealth. Brothers hand in hand means broth- 
ers heart in heart. 

^^Shake hands all around — with the troubled 
in warm-hearted sympathy! The young, the 
discouraged, those who have small incomes 
and big expenses — give them of your strength 
by shaking hands. Shake hands with God’s 
children as they set forth on that last unend- 
ing journey! Across cradles, and graves, and 
deathbeds,, shake hands. Shake hands with 
your enemies. So shall you save them from 
doing you hurt, defaming you, and harming 
themselves by pitiful efforts to harm you. 
Shake hands at the church door with strangers 
as well as friends. Shake hands pulpit and 


AS IT HAPPENED. 187 

pews! Shake hands Sunday with all days of 
the week! Shake hands earth and heaven! 
Only thus can Jesus — praise His holy name. — 
be justified and His sacrifice avail! His love 
has no better measure, no better exponent, 
than a true and honest hand-shake. May He 
speed the hour when all men, high and low, 
rich and poor, shall shake hands across all 
chasms of condition; when nation shall stretch 
f(«rrh to shake hands wdth nation, and God 
Himself shake hands with His creature man.’^ 

I heard him, awed and breathless. It must 
be T thought I had been sent to listen. Spirit- 
ual help I needed beyond all other things. Per- 
haps in the fullness of it I might also find the 
uiaterial help so long sought in vain. Per- 
liaps I had lacked faith. Certainly I had tried 
vaingloriously to stand and work alone, hop- 
ing to triumph, to overcome in my own poor' 
strength. NoW' I would ask God’s guidance 
through the lips of His chosen instrument. 
Faith and trust might bring me over the Hill 
Ditfieulty, where for so long my weary feet 
had been stayed. 

All through the night the peace — ^that peace 
of God which passeth all understanding — re- 
mained to comfort me. I slept like a little 
child and awoke with a heart of hope. It 
seemed a year went before the hour when my 
worldly knowledge told me it would be meet 
to seek out the minister. I meant to go to him 
holding out my hand and saying simply, 


188 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


have come for wisdom. Speak with me as your 
heart directs.’’ Then I meant to tell him 
briefly of my sore need. Work alone I would 
ask for — any sort of work that would mean 
maintenance and a little free time. I was not 
like the singer — full of hope to proflt by the 
pious folk. But I did think it might be in his 
powder to speak some word which would open a 
door hitherto closed against me. 

His house was easily found. It is big and 
fine and stands on the corner of a desirable 
residence street. But I rang its bell fearlessly. 

I was but one of God’s lonely ones come to 
ask the help of God’s people. They were ac- 
tive to save sinners. Though I was far from 
perfect I had not fallen to the depths, and 
they might care as much to keep me still out 
of them as they would to drag me back, once 
I had taken the plunge. 

A man in livery opened the door — not wide, 
but stingily — so he could peer out without 
letting me see much within. He eyed me with 
disfavor before I opened my lips, when I said, - 
^‘Tell the minister a woman wishes to see him 
about the Lord’s business,” the disfavor grew 
into positive disdain. ^Wou — you better go 

talk to the church society about that,” he said, 
sullenly, at last. ^^The minister he don’t have 
time to bother with no cranks. If he took it he 
wouldn’t have no time fer nothin’ else much. 
You had better move along now. It ain’t 
worth while asking him — ^I know he does not 
want to be troubled.” 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


189 


shall not trouble him in the least/’ I said. 
^^But I am sure he will see me. At any rate, 
take him my card and say I am waiting. Mean- 
time I should like to sit down — and I should 
not like to have you shut the door in my face.” 

He had been on the point of doing that, but 
something in my voice or manner stopped him. 
Very grudgingly he opened the door wide 
enough to admit me, and said, motioning me 
to a seat: ^^Stay there! I know he’s busy— 
but I’ll take him the card.” Then as he went 
away he called to a smart housemaid, so loud 
I could not choose but hear, ^^Maria, keep your 
eye on the hall door, will you?” 

aj’ve got the missis’ breakfast to take up!” 
Maria retorted, with a toss of the head. As 
they both disappeared I looked about me in 
amazement. The hall was the very finest spot 
I had ever seen. Richly-carved wainscotings 
of rare Eastern woods ran all about it. Above 
them were old tapestries; the fioor, of pol- 
ished wood, was strewn with rugs which must 
have cost up in the thousands. They were 
genuine antiques, with the softness and the 
splendors of the far East breathing from them. 
The hall itself was so spacious as to bespeak 
great wealth — here in this city, where space 
is hardly less precious than rubies. There was 
a cabinet, also an antique, full of curios and 
carved gems. Tall, high-backed, carved chairs 
stood here and there. Either side the fireplace 
there were seats in tapestry-hung nooks. An 


190 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


inlaid table some little way off upheld a mass 
of costly litter interspersed with new^ books. 

A real fire of hardwood snapped and 
sparkled between the great brass fire-dogs. In 
front of it there was a magnificent tiger-skin, 
and on the wall at one side a collection of fire- 
arms. Evidently someone in the household 
was an ardent sportsman. It could hardly be 
the minister himself, I thought, still the mat- 
ter was not vital. A man might love God and 
God’s work entirely, yet not abate by one jot 
his keen relish for normal human pleasures. 
I had heard vaguely that the church this min- 
ister served was among the wealthiest in the 
city. It spoke volumes, I thought, for the good 
faith of his parishioners that they chose to 
have him live upon a scale of magnificence 
matching their own. No doubt, by making 
himself thus one with them he was able to in- 
fiuence them more powerfully — to rouse them 
more keenly to a realization of the privilege 
of wealth. 

The insolent servants I thought I under- 
stood. The minister himself, of course, had 
not time to look after them; his wife was most 
likely a confirmed invalid. It was well on to- 
ward noon. Only an invalid or a very fash- 
ionable lady would be breakfasting in bed at 
that hour — particularly on Monday morning — 
Sunday evenings were bound to be kept holy 
in the household of this man of. God. My 
heart rose up in pity and went out to him 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


191 


afresh as I meditated. Here, no doubt, I rea- 
soned, in this tribulation of his own heart, 
was one root of the wide, heart-reaching sym- 
pathy which had overflowed in his words and 
made my dry soul feel renewed. A door at 
my right opened and closed quickly. The min- 
ister came through it, holding the hand of a 
tallish, thin man, who was chuckling as though 
in great glee. I heard the minister say: ^‘It 
is almost unpardonable. — your not reaching 
the city a day earlier. We had a quiet little 
dinner last evening that only wanted your 
presence to make it perfect. Senator Talk- 
well, Doctor Greateye, Esperance, the novel- 
ist, you know, and two or three more nearly 
as good. My wife will be desolate over not 
seeing you; but you know how she values her 
health. We were up until two o^clock this 
morning, and she will have ten hours^ sleep, 
no matter what happens.^’ 

^^You should be glad of that — it keeps her 
the handsomest woman in the city,^^ the tall 
man said, with his hand on the doorknob. The 
minister smiled beamingly and himself opened 
the door. He stood chatting with his guest 
a minute longer, then came in, half frowning, 
and turned, as if to re-enter the room he had 
just quitted. Suddenly his eye fell on me. He 
stopped short, stared; then, seeming to re- 
member something that had escaped him, 
said, with superflcial blandness: ^Tardon me, 
madam — I had forgotten there was a — that 


192 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


anyone was waiting. What can I do for you? 
I must ask you to be brief, as my time is very 
much taken up, and, at best, hardly my own.’^ 
came to shake hands,^’ I said, looking fix- 
edly at him. He continued to stare rather ab- 
sently, but brightened a little, saying: 

Then you heard me yesterday. Well, madam, 
if all who come to me were as easily satisfied 
my lot would be much happier than it is.’^ 

He came toward me, holding out his hand, 
his eyes full of well-stimulated warmth. I 
kept my hands down a minute, then raised 
one and dropped it in his palm, saying as I 
did it: ^^But that is not all I want. Can you 
not help me to join hands with some work?’’ 

Instantly his face froze. He almost dropped 
my hand and stepped back a pace, motioning 
me aw^ay, as he said: ^^What sort of w^ork? 
I — really — this is extraordinary. You must be 
a stranger. I leave all that sort of thing to 
the society. Go to them — at the parish house, 
you know — they attend to all these — ahem! — 
trivial details so my mind shall be free for — 
well, higher things.” 

‘^What are th^y? Your sermons?” I asked, 
quickly. Then, as I swung on my heel, I re- 
peated, slowly : T was an-hungered, and ye 
gave me no meat; thirsty, and ye gave me no 
drink; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick and 
in prison, and ye visited me not.’ ” 

^‘My church does all those things for me,” 
he cried, impatiently. — you must know, no- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


193 


body thinks any more of taking Scripture lit- 
erally. If you will come back Thursday I will 
listen to you a few minutes — 

^'Thank you!’’ I said. ^‘But God is so much 
closer, so much more accessible, I had rather 
go and talk to Him.” 

Hojv I got back to my poor shelter I do not 
know. I have a vague, confused memory of run- 
ning, of becoming very tired, of seeing people 
as ghosts walking — then of falling down and 
sleeping almost as one dead. Out of the sleep 
I waked to a blackness of despair such as I 
have never known. Every door is shut — no es- 
cape is possible. I must sell myself — or die. 
There lies my only choice. I have eaten noth- 
ing all day, save a crust and a cup of milk at 
morning. Even yet I am not, I suppose, in the 
lowest depths. A girl I talked with the other 
day in a shop told me, her eyes flickering dully 
at the recollection: ^^Before I had regular 
work. — I get six dollars a week now and do 
beautifully on it — but before that often all the 
breakfast I had was to stop on the grating 
over a bakeshop as I went looking for work 
and snuff the good, hot bread smell that came 
up to me.” 

Tomorrow must decide it. Unless I And 
something, at evening I shall go — to the river 
or Deering. Choice would be easy only for 
the Vision. I could not sleep in the grave and 
leave it undone. 


CHAPTER XX. 


Vallery Writes: 

New York City, April — . 

The deed is done, my dear Bolton. On your 
head rests the responsibility. Deering is rag- 
ing like a caged wild beast. As yet he only 
suspects my agency, so I have not suffered 
financially. He is, in spite of his delinquen- 
cies, too much a man, and — I had almost writ 
ten — a gentleman, to act seriously upon a 
basis of suspicion. 

Your protege — ^your unseen protege — perhaps 
I had better call her ours — is safe and at work. 
This, I know, will be good news to you. It 
has surprised me, well as I thought I knew 
you, to find how generously, how almost Quix- 
otically, you have taken up her cause. I hope, 
indeed, I believe, she deserves it. Let me say, 
however, what is the frozen truth: I do not 
believe there is anywhere in the world an- 
other man who would do what you have done 
— interest himself in behalf of a perfect 
stranger to the extent of assuming a possible 
financial risk. It is like you — yet a little be- 
yond what I expected even of you. Therefore 
I myself am all the more shamed. When your 
telegram came I had about made up my mind 
to let the whole thing go by the board as one 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


195 


that I could not afford to meddle with. But 
when I read your message in a flash I saw 
myself as I really was — a selflsh coward, 
masking cowardice as prudence. 

Your way of putting things has a tonic qual- 
ity. I hope I have shown myself at least 
^^worth damning.’’ Maybe I shall even show 
myself, after a while, worth saving. Now, to 
get down to particulars — the helping hand 
was barely in time. I found Mrs. Barber des- 
perate — white, calm, with burning eyes, and 
hands like ice. Something, I know not what, 
had impelled me to seek her just as soon as 
you made up my mind for me. On the way to 
her I dropped in on my fellow-conspirator. He 
hardly deserves to be called so, however, since 
he is a staid business man, whose only con- 
cern was to find a person peculiarly endowed 
for a very peculiar sort of work. 

Still, more particularly, he is a big silk man- 
ufacturer, with artistic aspirations. He wants 
an unusual touch in his fabrics. In other 
words, he wants them to be out of the beaten 
track. I have known him since our college 
days and have often talked over his hobby 
with him while we smoked our after-lunch 
cigars. It was in one of these smokes the 
thought came to me — here is the place, the 
person to help Deering’s prey! She has the 
most exquisite color-sense — she could make 
undreamed-of color combinations. This man 
could and would pay her some part of what 


196 AS IT HAPPENED. 

they were worth to him — not munificently^ of 
course, but enough to liye on until she proyes 
whether or no she is capable of anything more 
serious. 

That is exactly what has come to pass. I 
stayed with her only long enough to giye her 
an address and say, ^^Work awaits you there.’^ 
You ought to haye seen her face as she heard 
me. It is not a little unjust that I should 
haye had the sight instead. She seemed to 
thaw, to come to life, to become all in a min- 
ute a woman, flushing, paling, panting in the 
stress of hope and joy. She was fully dressed 
for the street. was going out — to make an 
end of it all,’^ she said, seeing my glance of 
faint astonishment at her readiness. Then she 
waited to say no more, but skimmed down the 
stairs and shot out of the door at a pace I 
could not equal. People in the street turned 
and stared after her. I did not wonder at it — 
her face was so illumined. 

As I was leaving my office she ran into me, 
her face deadly pale, but her eyes glowing. 
had to come — to thank you,” she said, breath- 
lessly. ^^Sleep would have been impossible un- 
less I had done it — and after today — I shall 
have no time. Thank you! Thank God for 
that!” 

have done nothing!” I protested. She 
shook her head and loked at me, tears suddenly 
quenching the brilliance of her eyes. They 
made her positively irresistible — still I made 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


197 


an effort to keep a level head. Do not despise 
me utterly for what is coming. It is part of 
our bond of friendship to speak only the truth 
and all the truth. I might have remained out- 
wardly calm but for the woman herself — it is 
that same irrational and maddening inno- 
cence. She stooped, lithely, lightly, and 
touched my fingers with her lips. It was the 
gentlest, timid touch, such as a child might 
give a stranger who had suddenly given it a 
great and long-coveted pleasure. 

Then — I caught her in my arms, and kissed 
the round of her white cheek. She shrank 
away from me with a low, hurt cry: ^^You, 
too! O, not you!’^ she said, looking at me with 
eyes full of pain. thought you, at least — 
have you forgotten what you told me first — 
about the one woman — the one little girl 

I said, contritely. ^^I have not forgot- 
ten it — nor have I forgotten them. Dear Mrs. 
Barber, do forgive me. I — I meant no harm. 
But let me give you a bit of advice. However 
grateful you may feel, or however kindly, to- 
ward any man, never again make the mistake 
of forgetting that he is — a man^ — and fallible.’’ 

^^I shall not — but, O! I am so sorry!” she 
said, dropping her thick veil and walking 
away, while I called myself all manner of 
fools and gave ten minutes to thinking how 
I could make up to her for this last wholly 
needless hurt. 

This is my conclusion: I can best atone by 


198 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


keeping a careful eye on Deering. More, I will 
let him know that I am watching in her inter- 
est. If he does not like it he may lump it — 
and straightway take himself and his business 
to another office. Also, I shall see to it that 
his claim is paid — ^if I have to put money 
I cannot very well spare into the picture 
which is his security — if ever it is finished. 

I have not seen her since. That was a week 
ago. Yesterday I talked awhile with Brentane, 
the silk man, and found that he has hope of 
her. ^^She is new and strange and frightened 
yet — she is so big it is not easy for her to fit 
herself into a new place,^’ he said. ^^So far she 
has not done much that I care for. You see, 
I give her the. color-cards of the season — the 
shades that are going to be fashionable — and 
bid her combine them and mingle them in 
every possible way. This she does on little 
squares of cardboard, which I look over next 
day. If any one of them appeals to me, seems 
specially effective, then I give it to the pat- 
tern-maker. After a while this new woman 
may herself make patterns — when she has 
learned to draw and the technical part of it. 
There is much more than even form and color 
in the matter of making a pattern, let me tell 
you. I pay her only for half-time — twenty dol- 
lars a week. On that she can live. I have 
given her a card also to the school we manu- 
facturers have established. There she will get 
free the training she most needs. I have 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


199 


looked over a pile of things she has been doing 
alone. It is through them, not her color-work 
for me, I know I have at last stumbled on ex- 
actly the woman I want.’^ 

^^Has she the making of a great artist in 
her?^^ I asked. Brentane smoked on a minute, 
then half shook his head and said slowly: 
great artist, no. But it would not astonish me 
if she painted one great picture some of these 
days. A picture that was part of her life — 
herself. It will have to be something vague, 
something mystical — she will never at her age 
so far overcome want of early training as to do 
inspired work, dealing with realities. If she 
gets the right subject, the right mood, the right 
air and light all at once — then she may do 
something wonderful; but she will never do it 
again.’^ 

Brentane knows. He spent five years abroad 
knocking about among artists, intent to learn 
art secrets. In fact, he has himself the artist 
soul, but no facility whatever for giving it ex- 
pression with his fingers. He was fairly rich 
to begin, and this manufacturing business is in 
a way the expression of his inner self. It has 
prospered in spite of some wild schemes of pro- 
fit-sharing he set on foot several years back. 
His factory is outside the city — not in a place 
with the rest, but a green, tidy little village, 
half an hour out by train. I wish our protege 
might go to live there, but that is impossible. 
Brentane is in town most of the time, and all 


200 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


the finer details of the business are conducted 
here. But she is in good hands — indeed, she 
could not possibly have fallen in beter. Bren- 
tane is so wrapped in business he will see in 
her only his new colorist — never a woman' of 
unusual charm. 

I am writing thus at length that you may 
know everything. Answer in the same fash- 
ion — tell me if you approve, and further, what 
you think of this plan: Let us two, through a 
non-committal third party, free Selene Barber 
from Deering’s clutches, send her abroad for 
five years, and take our chances of getting our 
money back when she succeeds. It would cost 
rather more than I alone can spare, or I should 
have undertaken it alone. Let me hear from 
you at convenience — she will do very well 
where she is at present. Forgive this long 
epistle — and much that it contains. For the 
rest, I am as always. 


Faithfully, 

VALLERY. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


Bolton Writes: 

Milltown, 111., May — . 

My Dear Vallery: 

I have taken time to think before answering 
you. Understand, I am not dogmatizing, but 
this seems to me to be incontrovertible truth — 
the one thing more deplorable than the fact 
that women work outside the shelter of a home 
is the cruel necessity that drives them to it. I 
myself employ women by scores, with my con- 
science all the time protesting. I had ever so 
much rather pay men enough to enable them to 
marry, to take care of wives, and make a pro- 
vision for possible daughters, but what will 
you ? There is competition ; there are the laws 
of trade — ever so many big things — far too big 
for individual effort to overset them, right in 
the way. 

Nothing hurts me more than to realize, as I 
do so very often, that while men must work, 
women, in the main, must work and weep. 
They are ground betwixt the upper and nether 
millstones of human nature and our complex 
modern civilization. If when she becomes a 
worker she could cease to be a woman, retain- 
ing only feminine aptitudes and deftness after 
the manner of the working bees, then life 


202 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


would be spared its most tragic spectacles — for 
example, such as that which you have been 
showing me at second hand. 

You do yourself injustice. I am certain the 
Francis Vallery I know would never have been 
the coward to let a woman be crushed for any 
fear of financial loss. Money is not everything 
— recollect, old man, how we used to debate 
that point when our allowances ran short at 
the old university. We were callow and self- 
sufficient, after the niianner of such lads, but 
on the wffiole we often stumbled on sound doc- 
trine and pretty deep philosophies. Life has 
at least taught me that much. It has not taught 
me to forget, either, how^ the boy Frank Val- 
lery knocked down the braggart son of a multi- 
millionaire because he insulted a washer-wom- 
an’s pretty daughter. City life is a hardening 
and in some ways a devitalizing process, but 
I shall never believe any amount of it can 
change the elemental chivalry of my friend 
into calculating prudence. 

I should have been certain of you without 
your confession. Oh, Vallery, Vallery! The old 
Adam must be strong in you! Do not think, 
though, I shall mock at you or sermonize — 
again, life has taught me the inevitability of 
such stumblings in the higher way. The man 
never lived who was beyond temptation. Sus- 
ceptibility is very largely a matter of tempera- 
ment — and you were born susceptible in the 
last degree. I myself am differently cast. My 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


203 


life has not been spotless. — Heaven knows 
there are many things in it I would wipe out 
if I could. As I cannot, I must atone for them 
as best I may. But this I can say: So far as 
regards women, there is no one of them who 
has ever suffered hurt or insult or oppression 
at my hands. Only a few of them have the 
power to move me. I am wondering, by the 
way, if our protege would attract or repel me. 
I have sometimes a wish to see her and find 
out. Then my mind changes. I am sure it is 
best that we remain strangers. I pity her 
deeply. She seems to have had rather more 
than her share of troubles. If I were omnipo- 
tent, with my present finite mind, no woman, 
good or bad, should ever have trouble of any 
kind more than the fact of womanhood. 

If you look at it rightly, Vallery, that is in 
itself a tremendous handicap. Think what it 
must be to be born helpless? Women have 
hands, ears, eyes, organs, dimensions — yes, and 
aspirations, and passions — much the same as 
men. They know the spur of ambition, the 
sting of emulation, quite as well as the restful- 
ness of love and the sweetness of maternity; 
yet, unless they would shame their woman- 
hood, they must exist largely in the passive 
voice. As between men, I believe ^^the gifts 
of the gods are equal,” but woman^s is quite 
another story. They are forced into the race 
carrying weight from the start, and often the 


204 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


winning means more shame to them than the 
losing. 

This being the case, I hold — and try to live 
up to my holding — that it is every man’s 
bounden duty to protect a woman wherever, 
whenever and however he can — even if needs 
must he protect her from herself. ' It is fur- 
ther his duty to help within the straight and 
narrow limits of the allowable. That is to say, 
to help her by giving her fair work, fair usage, 
fair wages, by putting her womanhood out of 
open consideration in all matters of bargain- 
ing — in fact, to give her simply a white man’s 
chance to do whatever it may be necessary for 
her to undertake. Open help — loans that are 
practically gifts, indulgences and that kind of 
thing, are disadvantages. In the first place, 
they always carry in the world’s mind so much 
of compromising suggestion they require to 
be done in secret. The big old world may be 
hard — in individual cases it often is — but in 
the main it is right eleven times out of twelve. 
Things begun in the purest kindliness often- 
times drift on to dire disaster. I have seen 
homes, and lives, too, wrecked, by the finest 
virtues of manly natures, and that, too, with- 
out designed fault on the part of the woman. 

You will understand why I say no, at least 
in part, to your plan for this woman who in- 
terests us. Let her stay where she is. There, 
if anywhere, she may work out her own salva- 
tion. But keep watch as you have suggested. 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


205 


If Deering makes a move to take our distressed 
queen give him check, if it cost ten thousand 
to do it. Draw on me for whatever you need, 
marking the draft ^^Letter B,’’ so I shall un- 
derstand. As to the money for sending her 
abroad, that shall be forthcoming whenever 
she is ready for it. She is not ready now un- 
less I wholly misunderstand the situation. She 
would go oppressed, timorous, and lacking 
hope. Once let her feel that she has achieved 
something — that she stands where she stands 
in right of her own strength — and she will be 
able to profit by all the old world or the new 
can offer her. 

I need not say keep under cover about this. 
You know, even better than I, how fatal it is 
to the best intentions to have it known that 
they center and circle about a beautiful wom- 
an. You need not answer at once — I am off for 
the Golden Gate tomorrow, and shall not be 
back before mid-August. Then I shall likely 
look you up at the seashore, or wherever I may 
find you; of course, they will know your loca- 
tion at the office. Make my compliments to 
your wife, and tell my sweetheart she must 
wear overalls and romp like a boy all sum- 
mer so she will grow up in a hurry. I am get- 
ting lonely out here and tired of bachelor ex- 
istence. Ask her if she thinks she cannot 
manage the growing up in the next five years. 
I found a gray hair yesterday — and am getting 
crow feet underneath my right eye. 


206 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Seriously, I begin to feel the mistake of 
staying a bachelor. It is too late now to rem- 
edy it — all the same, it is a mistake. And 
there is no reason in the world why I should 
have made it. I have not the ghost of a ro- 
mantic memory to excuse it, and as to ways 
and means I could have looked out for two 
since the first year I set to work for one. It 
must be the right woman did not come within 
range. Or, maybe, there is no right woman 
for me. I may be of the luckless ones born 
odd. However that may be, I shall not specu- 
late further over the matter. Still — this big 
house is lonesome. It would be lievelier with 
the patter of little feet all through it. 

Goodbye. If I do not get back from this 
journey you will find I have not overlooked my 
little sweetheart in the division of things. 
Give her a kiss for me. I have also left you 
ten thousand in trust. If anything should hap- 
pen to me you will know what to do with it. 
This is all, except that I am. 

Sincerely your friend, 

RICHARD BOLTON. 
********** 

Selene Writes: 

New York City, February — . 

A mood of memory possesses me. I will 
open the book I shut, a*s I thought, forever, so 
many months ago. Not to record all that has 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


207 


come and gone. Some things I would forget — 
others mj soul keeps too sacredly to profane 
them with a visible transcript. Here or there 
I shall rough in a bit — blurred and hasty, yet 
sufiScient, since no other eyes are to see it. 

I have turned back, glancing along the 
pages forewritten. It was not well done — the 
heartbreak in many of them all but laid hold 
on me anew. And this new peace, this help- 
ing sanity and calm, is far too precious to be 
lightly risked. Thank God for work — it has 
meant so much more to me than life. I was 
at the very end of endurance when it came. At 
first I was too fearful to do well that which 
it had been given me to do. Thank God 
afresh — He let my courage come back to me. 
Now I take up my tools with serene confidence 
that I shall not hold them in vain. 

I have growm to love it — the work that at 
first seemed so narrow, so paltry. I have 
growm, too, to understand something of the 
impersonal art-love which is life to Mr. Bren- 
tane. I see him but rarely — only when I have 
either pleased or disappointed him very much. 
Indeed, I aih a kind of hermit here in my airy 
room, high above everything, with only my ^ 
colors, my cards, and my sheets of white pa- 
per. I mean they are my implements — the 
walls are full of casts, and prints, and tiny 
statuettes, and bit of exquisite-hued old china 
that is in itself an inspiration. At first I 
climbed up to it every morning, but after a 


208 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


month Mr. Brentane said, almost harshly: 
^^You lose time and strength coming — why not 
stay here all the time?^’ 

There was no reason, so I stay now. I have 
three rooms all my own. The building is all 
his — and he does not grudge me this space, 
otherwise wasted. Two flights down there is 
the big hall, where every day but Sunday be- 
twixt October and May the designing classes 
meet, and work. To me they have proved a true 
godsend. At last I have taught my stubborn 
fingers a knack of something like obedience to 
my instructed will. 

This is the largest room in my workshop. 
Here I sit for six hours studying shades and 
colors, dreaming, experimenting, dashing tints 
that swear at each other violently together, 
and interposing a third which somehow brings 
them into harmony. It is odd, but I do best 
with raw primary tints. Once or twice Mr. 
Brentane has said, with a grim smile: ^^You 
must be a kind of sorceress. That combination 
is as impossible as it is beautiful and daring.’^ 
Then I have made the patterns — not perfect 
ones, of course — I am not yet up to that; but 
patterns which showed how the raw reds and 
blues and vivid violets might be made to soften 
and subdue each other into something like 
Eastern richness. 

Brentane says I have the Eastern eye — bar- 
baric, yet harmonious beyond description. I 
smile inly when he says it, thinking there may 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


209 


be really something of the Orient about me. 
Earle always swore there was — and Deering — 

Oh, why have I let his name creep in? I have 
sworn to forget him, until that good day 
dawns when I can know myself free. I hope 
it is not so far away, though it is months since 
I touched the Vision. I am letting my dream 
grow and ripen as my hand learns more and 
more the cunning of true art. Regularly every 
quarter I let his attorney know that the pic- 
ture is ^^still unfinished,’’ and ask if my cred- 
itor cares to examine it. So far he has not 
done it. I hardly ever see him, indeed. Once 
I met him as I was coming here. He halted 
me, and said, with a sarcastic smile: ^‘When 
it comes to choice betwixt me and Brentane, 
Selene, remember I am likely to die first — and 
able to leave you richer.” 

^^When it comes to a choice,” I answered — 
^^why, there remains always the river! I was 
on the point of going to it, when work came. 
Please leave me in peace, so long as I can 
work.” 

He swung about and left me, with a blacker 
scowl than ever. He is not friends with Mr. 
Vallery now, though Vallery is still his man 
of business. I fancy he hates everyone who 
helped in my escape from him. If he only 
knew certainly that it was really death I es- 
caped I wonder if he would be so bitter and 
angry? 

Mr. Vallery I see now and again. He is 


210 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


cramped in my presence — as I am in his. That 
is not strange — considering — what I shall not 
consider. But after all is said and done, he is 
truly kind. Once he brought his little girl to 
see me, and he tells me over and over: 
Deering stirs a finger, let me know it at once. 
IVe a knight that can settle that gentleman 
without help of even a pawn.’’ 

I do not quite know w^hat he means — it must 
be something about chess — a game I have al- 
ways hated. I do not care to know accurately 
— because I understand that he will fight for 
me if that other man makes me trouble. That 
he will nevei; need to do it is now my dearest 
hope. I nm not by nature combative — now all 
I crave is lo be left in peace. 

Last night I dreamed of Earle. Ah, me! 
How dim and far off he seems now! I can 
hardly believe myself the same Selene Barber 
that agonized and wept for him, that would 
have been trampled in the dust for his glory, 
but could not bear to help him sink his better 
self. I did love him — better than I shall ever 
love any other man. I doubt, indeed, if an- 
other love is possible — my heart is like a dead 
thing, so far as relates to thrills and raptures. 
If he came to me tomorrow* — ^in my dream he 
did come — imploring me to be his wife, in the 
face of all the world, I think I should turn 
away from him to keep on with my work. In 
the dream I heard his voice, I felt his touch — 
yet all the feeling evoked was a wish that he 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


211 


would go and leave me. And only three years 
back his smile was more to me than sunlight — 
his image came always between me and my 
God. I was old enough, certainly, to have 
loved with the love of a life. I think I did love 
Earle so — but love, at least in my heart, is 
neither an air-plant nor an immortelle. Tis 
true, 'tis pity — and pity ’tis, ’tis true! I can 
only admit the truth. Denial would make it 
none the less pitiful. 

If I had married him I wonder if this same 
disillusionment would have befallen? I think 
not. Mine is a constant nature, not light and 
fickle. Sheltered by home walls, fed by home 
duties, I am sure the flame of my love would 
have burned forever pure and bright. Now, 
like the ballad heroine — 

“I care for nobody, no not 1 1 
For nobody cares for me C’ 

But I do care very much for one thing — suc- 
cess, which is another name for independence 
and honest maintenance. For that I live now, 
and hope, and work, and plan. One of the 
plans I shall put in execution very soon. It is 
a little, tiny one^yet may have big results. I 
have found out in part the mysteries of rug 
patterns. A successful one, I am told, is worth 
a good many hard dollars. And I have dreamed 
out one that cannot fail of success. That is 
ever so much better than wasting my dream- 


212 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


time on lovers, past or prospective. This dream 
is going down on .paper Sunday. Commonly I 
spend the day somehow in the open — in the 
parks, or on the river, or in a solitary excur- 
sion some little way out of town. Church has 
not seen me since the day of shaking hands. 
I read my Bible daily, and try to draw spir- 
itual strength from it, in my own poor way. 
Thus 1 am assured I do not break the com- 
mandment to keep the Sabbath holy. Only 
good thoughts come to me, under the sky or 
in the face of the glad green earth. Works of 
charity and necessity the strictest churchman 
may do. It is a work of necessity — this of 
mine. I need a whole long day to do it well — 
and I have no other day free. 

If my pattern brings me a hundred dollars 
— why! I am like the milkmaid — even more 
foolish than she. I have saved a little money 
already — if I can earn more, outside my reg- 
ular stipend, I shall put it aside sacredly to 
be spent among the hills. Those far, blue 
southlying Virginia hills haunt me. I must 
see them once more — somehow they seem to 
hold my Vision somewhere in their enchanted 
depths. To go and find it, and bring it away 
in my heart so my hand may body it forth- — 
this is my one day-dream. To think it hinges 
upon the possibilities of a pattern as yet un- 
drawn ! 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


213 


New York, December — . 

My hand shakes so I can hardly write. I 
am glad — glad to the tiniest fibre of my being. 
Money is a sordid thing — often I have felt that 
I despised it. Yet now I am so glad because 
of money I could dance like a child. It is not 
so much money, either — only two hundred dol- 
lars, the price of my pattern. But it means 
more — as much more — I have another pattern 
in mind and as good as sold. I shall work 
and wait! O! I shall be good and patient. 
Until the summer is strong and full I shall 
not let myself even think of the hills. But 
when -I begin thinking — ah! then I shall fiy 
away to them — I shall forget color-cards and 
all their works, and bathe my soul in the pure 
beauty of sun and sky and swelling blue dis- 
tances, and sweeping valley lines. 

After that — I cannot say. Mr. Brentane is 
most kind in his dry, unhuman wa}". think 
you are getting restless for work — real work,’’ 
he said to me the other day. ^^When you feel 
you cannot bear pressure any longer — tell 
me. It may be I can spare you half a year for 
what is in you.” 

Work! Work!’ Work That is my touch- 
stone, my talisman, the one thing that is truly 
vital in all my days. I have not time or 
strength for even you, my thrice-faithful confi- 
dence-keeper. When I come to talk with you 
again the whole face of the world may have 
changed. 


CHAPTER XXn. 


Vallery Writes: 

New York City, August — . 

My Dear Bolton: 

Have you any curiosity? 1 believe you hold 
it a vice of civilization — still, you cannot 
wholly have escaped it. At any rate you must 
be mildly anxious to know something of a 
person concerning whom you have heard much 
and said something this last tw^o years. I 
mean, of course, Mrs. Barber. I have seen her 
myself but once in six months. That was a 
fortnight back. I called on her as Deering’s 
legal mouthpiece, to ask about that unlucky 
picture of hers. Deering, I am confident, hates 
me. He no doubt keeps me because he thinks 
that his employment of me professionally in a. 
measure stands between me and Selene^s full 
friendliness. Deering has just sailed — gone 
abroad for an indefinite stay. He may stay 
five years. It would, however, surprise me less 
if he came back on the next steamer. He has 
not pined in loneliness for the woman he is 
pursuing — still his madness for her is as hot 
as ever. He has grown stouter a good deal 
this last year — balder, too, and coarser all 
round. To offset that, he has been lucky in 
the market — you do not need to be told he has 
cleaned up another half-million. He himself 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


215 


says he is ^‘well-heeled for Paris.’’ I believe 
he would give up Paris and the half -mil lion 
both — for a certain person in whom we are in- 
terested. 

I have a genius for wandering statement to- 
day. That person, as I began saying in the 
beginning, is now where you can see her, and 
talk with her, easily and without the least 
awkward premeditation. Take the F. F. V. 
one of these fine days and visit the old springs 
of Virginia; you will find her somewhere there- 
abouts. She means to stay until November, so 
there is no great need of haste. I am letting 
you know thus early so you may arrange to 
spare a fortnight for that particular diversion. 
Do not try to do the thing hurriedly. Take my 
word that she is worth studying — and give your 
whole mind to doing it. When you have seen 
her write me. If you were any other than 
yourself I should not advise as I do — I would 
be sure the report would run : “I came, I saw, 
I was conquered.” But you are like nobody in 
the world but yourself — and I am almost mor- 
bidly curious as to how you will be impressed 
with this woman, who has bowled over several 
other types of the human male so very com- 
pletely. 

It may interest you to know Brentane is 
still proof against her charms, and further, 
that he sticks to his opinion of her artistic ca- 
pacities, in the face of very considerable 
achievements on her part. She will, according 


216 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


to him, be able henceforth to maintain herself 
well, even handsomely, making patterns and 
doing purely decorative work. I am sure you 
will be glad to know it. I am sure, too, if 
Deering turns rusty upon his return, you will 
fall in with a plan I have — that we shall be- 
come her joint creditors, and give her her own 
time and way of working out of debt. 

But before everything else, go and see her 
for yourself. You can easily make a valid ex- 
cuse for such going. There are fish and game 
galore in those Virginia mountains. Though 
you are a very mild type of Nimrod, still you 
can handle a gun upon occasion. Unless you 
think I might be in the way, I should be glad 
to join you there. Now, do not look suspi- 
cious — I have no shadow of ulterior motive. 
I am henceforth and for always Mrs. Barber^s 
friendly well-wisher. If you want my com- 
pany, telegraph after you get there. I will 
come on the next train — if the case is urgent. 
Until I see you, goodbye — but do not fail to 
let me know the whole truth. The girl is grow- 
ing at a great rate — in fact, she feels so old 
nowadays she has bidden me to tell you as 
gently as I may that she really thinks you need 
not count on her any more — she wants a nice, 
pink-cheeked sweetheart, just as big as her- 
self. Considering how the feminine mind in- 
clines to continuing conquest, I think the mes- 
sage shows I have brought the young person 
up to have something of conscience. I came 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


217 


near forgetting it — but if you find yourself 
experiencing any qualms at sight of Mrs. Bar- 
ber, why, you can go in to win, with a knowl- 
edge you are entirely free — at least, so far as 
my family is concerned. 

This postscript — or, rather, postulate — 
threatens to run feminine length. I shall stop 
short — as always. Yours, 

VALLERY. 

*********** 

(Telegram.) 

‘ Clifton Forge, Va., September — . 

Vallery, New" York City: 

Caesar not in it. Stay away on pain of in- 
stant death. Have found Venus Victrix. 

Yours, etc., 

BOLTON. 


Selene Writes: 

Heart of the Hills, October — . 

I am awake! I am alive again! My heart 
sings for joy — joy in the sunlight, the hills, 
the million beauties all around me. It has 
been a wonderful thing — this revivification. It 
began, I think, when I knew the wide blue 
ocean rolled between me and my evil genius — 
Deering. A weight seemed to lift, an evil spell 
to fall away — my eyes were no more held from 
the subtle beauties of even the commonest 
things. My hand grew firm and free. Better 


218 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


still, I could make it do nearly what I would. 
My heart likewise grew bold. I said in it: ‘‘I 
will be happy — happy as God meant me to be.’^ 
So I put on my black garments — have worn 
the garb of mourning ever since that day when 
it seemed I signed away some part of my soul. 
Even Brentane, the unnoting, was struck with 
the change in me. He was also very kind. 
‘‘You need freedom — take it for at least a 
while,^^ he said — and I obeyed. 

Ah! How the hills, my dear hills, received 
me! They had, I am sure, hidden their royal 
splendors until I came. Never were there such 
dim, sweet purples unrolled along them — such 
far heights of faery set up on their crests. The 
winds sang the lowest, wierdest, most en- 
chanting melodies, and as I listened I saw 
their notes as the most wonderfully radiant 
hues. It is curious — the way my mind trans- 
lates all impressions into color. A bird note 
is clear, dawn-pink, or the palest, melting lilac; 
rippling water sounds golden, and the rustle 
of ripe grasses pure royal purple. Likewise 
it seems to me I can hear the colors — it is not 
a mere figure of speech to say that such and 
such of them swear at each other. They whis- 
per to me the most wonderful things — if only 
I could translate the whispers into common 
speech then I should be reckoned a poet. 

Truce to speculations, to nice subtleties. 
Here in the hills the delights of languor laid 
hold upon and possessed me. For a month I 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


219 


did not so much as think of work- — only lay 
at length in the sun or the shadow, letting 
the marvel, and the glory of it all do their 
perfect work. Silently, I felt that something 
was coming — something which would be 
epochal. I did not, I could not dream it was 
life itself — new life, fresh and wonderful, 
thrilling from the soul of nature, our mother. 

It is more than wonderful thus to be born 
again. Sometimes I fear I am dreaming, and 
pinch myself hard to make sure I am awake. 
As I grow more and more into the light all 
the darkness between comes like a dream — a 
bad dream, one that I remember vaguely as 
one long, shuddering chill. 

I can laugh at it, in this new strength, 
which came as suddenly as the languor had 
come, and set me quivering with the impulse 
to do, to create, to fix and make real all the 
fine inner essence of light and glow my soul 
was so raptly discerning. Then, and then 
only, I brought out my Vision. It had been 
dark and shrouded for a whole year. The 
sight of it aroused a curious sensation — partly 
pity for anything so ill-done, partly hope for 
anything so excellently conceived. For I could 
read through all the lines of failure the prom- 
ise of success. It was with my picture as with 
myself — I had first much to undo before real 
work was possible. 

How I fell to work on it! Never until then 
did I taste the full rapture of action. Now I 


220 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


think I know something of the exaltation pos- 
sible to a hero, who gives his life for the 
achievement of a great deed. He has the 
world’s applause, its honors, and, maybe, very 
much beside, but none of them can compare 
with what wells up in his own heart to sweeten 
and sanctify the actual doing. It is worth 
dying for — nay, it is even worth having lived 
for if life brought nothing else. 

Clifton Forge has fair hills about it, but 
something told me a fairer world lay beyond. 
So I set out to find it — and, behold, here it is! 
I have chanced upon the loveliest cup-shaped 
valley in the very edge of the mountain swells. 
Springs well out to gather into a brook, then 
run away in a fairy cascade through a nar- 
row, deeply-shaded gorge. It is barely wudc^ 
enough for a mill road beside the babbling 
water. All along either hillside there are 
ferns, and mossy ledges, and trails of lusty 
vines. Down below the ground is carpeted 
with clean, sweet-smelling leaves. Here or 
there you see fiowers — gentian clusters, asters 
of a hundred sorts, golden rod — this only 
where the sun breaks through — and waxen 
clusters of the mystic Indian pipe. It is all 
enchanting, yet far less so than the valley 
itself. It is all one farm, and no very big one. 
The house is low and gray and square, a pic- 
ture of homely thrift and comfort. It stands 
on a little rise at the valley’s farthest verge. 
Back of it the hills go up and up to a perfect 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


221 


pinnacle. From the top of it one can see fifty 
miles up and down the range. The charm of 
it is that for such viewing you must seek one 
particular spot — a bald, stony place, a little 
westering, where the hills fall so deeply down 
they are almost precipitous. Thick growths 
of laurel and wild azalea hedge it about, and 
a huge leaning chestnut shades it at mid-day, 
yet it no-wise shuts out the view. 

There, in that green seclusion, I began my 
work anew, companioned only by silence and 
the hills. I could not wish for better company. 
No soul, indeed, could have better. It was a 
kind of inspired isolation. I would not have 
exchanged it for anything short of heaven 
itself. I came to the hill-top in time to see the 
sunrise, and stayed there until I had watched 
the sun go down, amid splendors no eye might 
endure, no tongue or pen describe. All the 
pretty, shy, wild creatures seemed to welcome 
me — velvet-footed rabbits came to nibble at 
tender shoots, gray squirrels, and red ones, 
frolicked and scampered up and down the 
chestnut boughs, quail piped clear at mid-day 
and sent out their feeding cry at morning, 
ruffed grouse whirred past me as though on 
purpose to catch my eye. Then the butterflies 
came in clouds — tiny white and big yellow 
ones — and when the sun was hot the big, gold- 
dusty humble bees droned all about. Wood 
wasps and dragon flies, too, darted here and 
there, striking out fine, fairy, metallic shim- 


222 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


mers in the glancing sunshine. Watching the 
flashing of their translucent wings, I said, in 
my heart: ^‘So light, so translucent, must be 
the wings of angels in my Vision.’’ 

Everything came to that until — but I had 
better tell that part consecutively. — it is the 
most wonderful of all. Whether he sought 
me, or how he found me, I shall perhaps never 
know. I mean Richard Bolton — the man who 
must forever stand apart from, above, all other 
men. He came upon me one day, as I stood 
pondering before my canvas. There was a 
gun in his hand, but one look at his eyes told 
me he had no pleasure in the death of any- 
thing. I ought to have been startled, or, at 
the very least, suspicious. So much, at least, 
I owed to experience — but I was neither of 
those things. 

^Wou look tired. Rest, or the view will take 
away your breath,” I said, motioning him to a 
place upon my Navajoe blanket, which was 
spread on a convenient ledge. He bowed 
gravely and asked: ^‘Will you keep on work- 
ing if I do?” 

^^Certainly. Why not?” I flung back at him, 
making a quick stroke with a fine sable brush. 

should hate to disturb you — yet I do not 
want to go away,” he answered. I smiled at 
his frankness. ^^Then you need not do it,” I 
said. ^The mountains are not mine — except 
by the i^ght of those who love them well. I 
wish they were mine — so I could make the 


223 


AS IT HAPPENED. 

whole world of hill-lovers welcome to them 
each year/^ 

He flung down his gun and eyed it with 
something like disgust. have been carry- 
ing useless weight, I see/’ he said. ^^And that 
is something which always spoils my temper. 
There is so much one is forced to carry it is 
a pity to waste strength.” 

I nodded. ^^Yes — I have been flnding that 
out experimentally in the last six weeks. 
Henceforth I mean to be wiser — and let each 
day answer for each day’s burdens.” 

^^That is right,” he said, heartily, then got 
up and held out his hand. I put mine within 
it, and was thrilled by the clasp it met. In a 
little while we were talking like old, old 
friends. Indeed, from the first he gave me no 
sense of strangeness — I felt I had known him 
well always, and that he had likewise known 
me. 

I was to happy to wonder over it. His com- 
ing was the last touch to my felicity. He had 
found quarters in the farm house that shel- 
tered me. What his business or his pleasure 
was I did not try to find out. I do not know 
even yet — though I know many other things. 
One of them is that Richard Bolton is the 
truest, the noblest, and the manliest man alive. 

T learned that something in this fashion: 
After ten days of comradery — the most stimu- 
lating comradery in the world — he said, as he 
stood watching my flying brush: “Do not put 


224 : 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


all your life on that canvas, Selene. It is too 
precious — I want a part in it myself.” 

I turned troubled eyes upon him. A sick 
dread filled my heart. He had grown to be 
something to me — something precious to my 
starved and fainting heart. Nature had 
brought it back to life, and human kindness 
had made it beat warmly, as of old. But it 
had done with lovers and loving — I wanted a 
friend — I thought I had found one — must I 
lose him just as I discovered his true worth? 
Perhaps he read all this in my glance. At any 
rate, he came a step nearer, but did not offer 
to touch me, as he said: ^^Do not be fright- 
ened. I am very patient. I can wait for 
years — if only it is a hopeful waiting. I am 
going to ask, Selene, what I have never before 
asked any woman: — will you be my wife? Not 
at once, of course. You know nothing about 
me — you have not thought of it. I had no 
need to think. The moment I saw you I knew. 
But women are different — ” 

^^Very different!” I broke in. ^^As different 
as I, an exceptional woman, am to women in 
the mass. Before you go further with what 
you have to say, listen; you may not care to 
go on when you know.” 

Then, in quick, tempestuous words, I told 
him — everything — of John, of Earle, of Deer- 
ing, of my hard fight, my despair, my rescue, 
my hope of ultimate triumph. He listened, 
his face growing bright and brighter all the 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


225 


while. When I wound up ^^Now you know all 
— my worst enemy can tell you no more/^ he 
smiled, and said, bending his head, as though 
in reverence: ^^No matter what was said, Se- 
lene, nor who said it, I should never believe it 
against the witnessing of your eyes.’’ 

Poor eyes! Tears suddenly drowned them. 
It was so long since I had heard words of 
trustful faith. Bolton took my hand tenderly 
between his own two broad palms, and said, as 
he pressed it lightly: ^^Selene, will you try to 
love me? Just a very little?” 

would give half my life to love you as 
you deserve,” I said, my voice shaken in the 
eifort to choke down a big, dry sob. He let 
go my hand, folded his arms, and said: 

am the best judge, dear, of my own de- 
serts — I know myself rather better than you 
do. And if I can be satisfied with whatever 
it may please you to give — ” 

^^Don’t! Please!” I said, putting out my 
hand in appeal. cannot listen to you — 
cannot think of anything except work until — 
until I am free. If I ever am — why! then — ” 
^^Then,” he echoed softly. I could not an- 
swer him. After a moment of tense silence he 
said, turning away his head as though he 
feared his gaze might wound: ^Jf< — if only 
you will let me, Selene, I will make this debt 
of yours mine — and pay it,” his lips tighten- 
ing a little over the last word. 

do not doubt that — but I can never let 


226 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


you/^ I said. ^T^nless I pay it myself I can 
never feel truly free. That man’s hateful eyes 
would haunt me, would poison the sweetness 
of everything. He must see, he must be 
made to see, that I have worked my way 
through his meshes.” 

think I understand,” he said, simply. ^^So 
understanding I cannot urge you further. But, 
at least, give me this promise if your heart 
will let you: — when you are free — ” 

He stopped, and looked at me steadily. I 
gave him my hand. ^^When I am free, by my 
own strength,” I said, ^^you shall be the first 
to know it.” 

will come — if you call me — across half 
the world,” he said. ^^Now I shall go away 
and leave you to work out your victory.” 

He went, never even looking back. That 
was three days ago. I miss him, more than 
words can tell — yet I am glad he has gone. 
Away from him I am not shamed to let his 
face mingle in my dreams of the future. I do 
not love him — not as I loved Earle. I do not 
love him in any way — but I do trust and look 
up to him, and feel that in him there is a rock 
of steadfastness, a tower of manly strength. 

But I have put all thought of love or mar- 
riage aside. My work, my Vision, calls me, 
enthralls me. I see its ineffable glories fioat 
and circle across the darkness and the light. 
I will make them visible to other eyes — not as 
I see them — mortal colors and canvas can 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


227 


never, never do that— but in such fashion that 
men shall know it is worth while to look again. 
And beyond the glow and the glories lies for 
me the fair prospect of freedom. 

How will it be, I wonder, when the city 
again sw^allows me up? Mr. Brentane must 
do without me — I must work, work, while the 
soul of the mists and the mountains abides 
with me. Plein air is, I believe, the art jargon 
for it. Ah, me! Life is neither broad enough, 
nor deep enough, nor high enough to truly 
voice the true and beautiful soul of art — yet 
the shallow practitioners of it think they can 
speak the last word. I have no strength to 
spend in quarreling with them — no strength 
for anything but work — and hope. 

Today there came a scrawl from Deering. 
Once it would have set me wild. Now I brush 
it away as I might brush a buzzing and in- 
trusive stinging insect. ^Art is long — and 
time is fleeting.’ Selene, you are teaching me 
the full meaning of that line. I am coming 
home in the spring. Please understand that 
then it must be play or pay.” I am so glad 
the letter waited until Bolton was away. If 
he had seen it — but I would never have let him 
rush into trouble. Indeed, upon second 
thought, I am sure he would not have done it. 
He understands better than I can tell him 
that anything he might do to defend or to 
avenge me would, save in the last extremity, 
hurt me more than it helped. 


228 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


I have answered Deering: shall be play 

or pay.’’ I wonder how he will read the line. 
But I must get him out of my thoughts — if I 
let myself dwell upon him I shall lose one of 

my last precious days in the heart of the hills. 

********** 

New York City, January — . 

My life hangs in the balance. If I should 
fail — but I will not name failure even to my 
own conscience. The heart of the hills 
abides with me — even here in the grimy town, 
shimmering, shining, melting in light or dark- 
ness, into the shimmering, the shinings, the 
shadows of the golden walls, the jasper streets, 
the river of the pure water of life, the wonder- 
ful sea of glass. 

My Vision is compact of all of them — the ef- 
fort of a soul caught in the whelming splen- 
dors of the whole magnificent allegory to 
spread out for other eyes some part of its own 
blessed realization. I can hardly bear to leave 
it long enough to sleep. Indeed, in these days 
the cumberings of mortality bear hard. 

Hope alone sustains me under the fearful 
strain. I dare not let myself think of any- 
thing but triumph. Triumph has a new mean- 
ing, a still more delightful sweetness, since I 
have met Bolton. He writes — but I do not 
answer him. Still I know he is content. It 
turns out that he knows Vallery — what if I 
had listened to his love, without telling him 
the whole truth! All unconsciously, I was 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


229 


wise there — even crafty-wise. It is so strange 
— but the more I think of him the more I rec- 
ognize his many excellencies, the more doubt- 
ful I grow, in my own mind, as to whether or 
no/'if I were free, I should care to take what 
he can give me! 

And he can give so much! His wife will be 
able to hold her head high among the best in 
the land. It is certainly petty in me, yet the 
keenest emotion I feel regarding him — I mean 
the thing which touches me most nearly, is a 
sense of triumph in the fact, for fact it un- 
doubtedly is, that his position is as much be- 
yond Earle Brewster^s as the Barcelona folk 
thought Earle’s was ahead of mine. 

I should be ashamed to confess as much — 
but from the beginning I have made no half- 
confidences to you, O, patie^nt pages! Then I 
have never posed as a paragon, devoted to 
Duty and Earnestness, with capital letters. 
I am nothing but a woman, full of human 
foibles, strength, and weakness. — so full, in- 
deed, that often I wonder if Fate was not un- 
kind w^hen she did not make me a farmer’s 
wife, and let me spend my life in mothering 
things — flowers, and animals, and children. 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff — 
still, I am deadly ambitious. It is the result 
of soul-transmutation, most likely. Feelings 
denied their proper and normal outlet often 
turn into strange channels. I am prosing here 
tonight, for example, because I wanted very 


230 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


badly to do something else. It was to wrap 
myself in hood and cloak and dash out into 
the streets, where a heavy snow is falling. As 
a child that was my dear delight — to stand and 
let the flakes pelt my face till it stung, then 
drop down in a drift, and roll, as a beast rolls 
in the dust. It must be atavism — in some 
ways I am strangely near my savage ances- 
tors a thousand years back. I had painted, 
painted, until the early dark made work out 
of the question. These days I cannot flx my 
mind on a book — and to sit dreaming in front 
of my grate was quite as impossible. 

The wind called to me, and the snow flakes 
tapped invitation against my window panes. 
If I had heeded my world would have thought 
me mad. True, I might have gone into the 
park and strayed away from prying eyes. But 
the effort, the premeditation, would have made 
my frolic tfeo business-like to be worth while. 
Desperately I have opened my locked book. 
Good, silent friend! How often you have 
helped me! How often you have drank in my 
revelations, saying never a harsh word of criti- 
cism or condemnation! 

Tonight I have a curious sense of flnality. 
I mean to write here very many other things — 
yet am impressed that this writing is the last. 
Yet half the pages are still fair, white paper. 
I shall use up three of them to set forth, 
briefly, the case of Selene Barber versus Fate. 

Selene Barber, a woman, not wholly ill- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


231 


looking, over thirty, loving life, and God, and 
little children, has been strangely withheld 
from the average womanly destiny, partly by 
something within herself, but more by the 
Fate which we call Chance. 

Now she stands at the parting of three ways. 
Which of them is it ordained she shall tread? 
Fate alone can answer. 

If she succeeds — ? 

The years unroll before her as a fair vista 
studded thick with all delights. Honor is 
there, and companionship of choice spirits, 
and, it may be, love. To achieve success she 
has done all she could — has toiled, has suf- 
fered, has put away the delights of life. She 
is not wholly answerable either for the con- 
ditions which make success now so imperative. 
What she did was done in all innocence — Fate 
may, however, plead against that — that igno- 
rance is no excuse in the eye of the law. 

If she fails — ? 

She had much better die — the sternest mor- 
alist could not deny that, once he had an in- 
timate comprehension of things. Failure 
means to her loathed luxury all the days of 
her life — means oppression as of a nightmare, 
insult, it may be, — and the falling away from 
all she has striven so hard to keep fast. 

If she dies — ? 

Not cowardly because she wills it, but hap- 
pily because God wills it — then! O, then! rest 
and peace, and the ending of all strife! She 


232 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


has no fear of death- — she would welcome him 
as a bridegroom, if he came in the glow of 
triumph. But she cannot seek his refuge wil- 
fully — she is pledged to another way. Perhaps 
she is straining points, but here lies the sting 
of it all. She cannot die, she cannot take kind- 
ly succor, because — because she has pledged 
herself, her poor woman-self, to her enemy, as 
the gage of success. Unless she can succeed 
she belongs to him, body and soul. It is a 
fearful bargain — one better broken than kept 
casuists will say. She knows better. This part 
of the bargain may be unwritten — but she 
made it, accepted it, with open eyes. From 
that fact there is no* appeal. 

Still — she would not be human, much less a 
woman, if she did not feel a certain potential 
grudge against Fate. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


The Spring Exhibition of the Society of the 
Fine Arts that year came very near working 
a miracle. It was not a canvas miracle — not- 
withstanding there was more than one notable 
picture. But when the Earth said of a par- 
ticular painting: ^^The Vision of St. John (S. 
Barber, pinxit) is almost epochal, combining 
as it certainly does the charm of realism with 
the most exalted impressionism, and both suf- 
fused with the very life of light,’^ and the 
Diurnal echoed, ^^A new artist, one S. Barber, 
of whom no one appears to have ever heard 
before, has given the Society the success of 
this season in a big canvas, entitled the Vis- 
ion of St. John,’^ then those wise in the ways 
of newspapers • opened their eyes and pricked 
up their ears, well knowing as they did that 
the serious business of life in the Earth office 
was to controvert whatever the Diurnal as- 
serted, and that the Diurnal likewise pro- 
claimed in action, if not in set words, that its 
reason of being was to plague, hamper, and 
belittle the Earth, 

Alone neither^s word meant anything to the 
discerning. Together it meant something un- 
mistakable. All the more that the Blazer, a 
sheet always conscientiously flippant, said: 
^^The Vision of St. John, from a new hand, is 


234 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


one of those very big pictures that would be 
great pictures if only the painters of them 
knew enough to boil them down — to get their 
undeniable effects from less than an acre of 
canvas, and to so strengthen the light that 
never was on sea or land as to make it illume 
the artist’s presumable intent.” 

The Curule Chair, which posed as an artistic 
oracle because it was always as conscientious- 
ly dull as the Blazer was flippant, damned the 
Vision with faint praise: Barber, who is 

new, and, in most things, raw, shows a color- 
sense that if hereafter properly directed may 
mean something,” This dictum the Evening 
Mail Bag quoted with mild approval, prefer- 
ing to say nothing upon its owm account. 

It was the Tahard, always eccentric, always 
incalculable, which took the Vision of St. John 
under its protection, and exploited it, with all 
the trumpets playing. This not through su- 
perior discerning on the part of the Tahard^s 
critic, but because that astute person had sev- 
eral scores to settle with artists who fancied 
themselves famous, and had, further, a realiz- 
ing sense of the pains and pangs it would cost 
those gentlemen to And their own glory ob- 
scured by a newly risen star. 

Strangers coming into the city and New 
Yorkers returning to it have equally the habit 
of looking into the morning’s Tahard to find 
out what is going on. The sheet’s vagaries 
are well known to be matched only by its 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


235 


profits — notwithstanding, those two classes 
feel that it is indispensable. Thus it came 
about that two men read of the Vision, at 
nearly the same minute, and with nearly equal 
gnawings of discomfort. The fact was aston- 
ishing, in view of the further fact that they 
were strangers, moving each in his own set 
orbit, the which, however, had impinged one 
upon the other. As is usual in such cases, the 
point of contact had been marked by a woman 
— and that woman the painter of the Vision. 

Deering read it, on the deck of the incom- 
ing steamer — the ship had been met by tugs 
in the lower bay, and Tabards were as plenty 
on it as blackbirds. The other side, Paris in 
particular, had done Deering little good. He 
moved heavily, almost lumpishly, his face ill- 
colored, and a trifle puffy about the eyes. He 
scowled almost incessantly as his eye ran up 
and down the columns of fine print. The 
scowl deepened to midnight blackness, when 
he saw Selene’s name, with a caricature of her 
underneath it, and below that a half-column 
story of her life and artistic evolution. The 
story was a work of the purest imagi- 
nation. Deering ought to have known 
that, but he was too nearly in a 
temper for connected thought or cogent rea- 
soning. ^^Miss Barber,” quoth the Tabard^ 
through its imaginative space writer, ^fis a 
young and very beautiful woman, a member 
of an old and aristocratic Southern family — 


236 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


the Barbers of Virginia. She came up to New 
York from her Virginia home, which is not 
very far from the habitat of the other Virginia 
beauty and genius, Amelie Kives, so lately as 
last fall. She has studied abroad, but for the 
last few years, directly from nature. It is the 
light of her own hills and valleys that shines 
out with such intense pathos, and still more in- 
tense beauty, from her painted Vision. 

found her in a sky parlor, to which she 
had retreated before the army of reporters now 
besieging her. am glad, of course, to tell 
the Tabard anything I can,’ she said, ^for 
there one is sure of reaching the people one 
cares for — also of never being misquoted. My 
success will not alter my plans in the least. 
What they are I do not just yet feel at lib- 
erty to say. Yes! perhaps I shall go abroad 
again next winter. But it all depends on my 
home people. They think me a genius, of 
course — they have always done that. This 
will not surprise them in the least. But you 
must really excuse me from talking about my- 
sel.’ 

^^From another source — a very old and warm 
friend— I learned that there is a romance back 
of the picture, which I am sorry not to be able 
to make public just now. All that is permit- 
ted to be revealed is the fact that the first 
thing Miss Barber did after learning through 
the Tabard that she had made the success of 
the year, was to send a telegram of one word — 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


237 


^Come.’ It was addressed to a wealthy South- 
ern mine owner — who, it is needless to add, 
came at once.’^ 

Then the Tahard man gave a categoric ac- 
count of ^^Miss Barber,’’ her features, her stat- 
ure, her favorite shapes and colors in hats and 
frocks. Altogether, it was a most creditable 
effort, seeing that the young man who wrote 
it had no more to go on than a casual sight 
of her, and still more casual speech, upon Var- 
nishing Day, and a wholly accidental knowl- 
edge of the fact that a friend of hers had sent 
a one-word telegram. He had been wholly hon- 
est with his paper — it was not his fault that 
after he had with infinite pains tracked Selene 
to her studio she had refused even to see him, 
much less to talk. Report of that fact brought 
imperative orders: ^^Get a story and a picture 
somehow.” So a staff artist sketched her from 
memory — he recalled her as having once been 
his fellow^-pupil at the League through the 
space of a month. As he had a good eye and 
a better memory the sketch was faintly like 
its supposed original — enough, at least, to let 
the Tahard indulge in editorial vainglory over 
the way it had beaten its competitors regard- 
ing the new genius. 

Deering ought to have understood all that, 
even if he did not. There was more excuse 
for Earle Brewster, who likewise read the 
fairy tale as he sat at breakfast in the Swell- 
dorf. He, too, should intuitively have known 


238 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


better than to believe it — yet he did believe 
the most of it, and the part about the telegram 
made him knit his brows heavily and swear 
behind his mustache. Luckily, he was alone 
— his mother had not been well enough to 
come with him upon this Eastern journey. He 
had made a half-dozen of them since his part- 
ing with Selene — and this was the very first 
time he had ever got trace of her. 

As he read, the old love, the old longing, 
rose up and mastered him. He had not lacked 
consolations, either, — but ’ somehow other 
smiles, other faces, had not been witching 
enough to wholly dull the ache for Selene^s 
loss. He dared not seek her out — it was his 
own act that had set a wall between them. 
But he might see her at a distance, might even 
approach her nearly in a crowd — she would 
never, he was certain, repudiate a claim of old 
friendship, if he made it before her world. He 
might ask — no, he could take no cognizance 
of the lucky mine owner. He wondered a lit- 
tle where and how she could have met him, 
and how she, the most uncompromising advo- 
cate of freedom, could have given her pledge 
to one of slaveholding antecedents. 

All at once it flashed over him: — what if 
that part of the tale were false, as he knew 
much of the rest to be! He laughed a grim 
laugh to find himself so relieved. Unacknowl- 
edged there sprang up within him a hope — he 
would see the picture, and the painter of it — 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


239 


he would first buy the Vision — then he could 
say, '‘I have some part of you. I want, as I 
have wanted always. — I want you — all.’’ 

He was breakfasting near noon — the night 
before had been a crowded one. As he passed 
out into the street, a carriage went swiftly by. 
A man looked out of the window, and scowled 
darkly as he Shouted at the driver: ^^Down 
town! I must see that Vallery before I go 
home.” 

Brewster could not choose but hear — the 
wheeling vehicle hindered his progress. As he 
stepped aboard the car, himself bound like- 
wise down town, he recalled the man’s face 
with something like a shudder. should be 
sorry to stand in his way!” he thought. ^^There 
is no law of God or man that would stand be- 
tween him and anything he wanted very 
badly.” 

And Deering, as he sank back upon his 
cushions, was aware of something familiar in 
this casual stranger’s face. It haunted him 
irritatingly, until, at last, he said, swearing a 
great oath and slapping his knee: ^^Either I 
am bewitched, and let everything hinge upon 
that w^oman — or that fellow is the one she 
loved, who had not grit enough to take her, 
whether or no.” 

He flung into Vallery’s office like a thunder 
gust, saying, with no pretense of greeting, as 
he thrust the Taharcl under Vallery’s nose: 


240 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


^^Wliat the devil and ail is the meaning of 
this?’^ 

^‘How do you do! Fve seen the paper/^ Yal- 
lery answered, rising and pushing the paper 
aside as he held out a welcoming hand: ^What 
it means? O, nothing much — except that you 
are certain to get back your money — with 
compound interest — if you will take it.’^ 

^‘Damn the money! You know I do not want 
it! Never wanted it! It’s the woman her- 
self — ” Deering began, his voice hoarse and 
sibillant. Vallery checked him with a look. 

^‘If you really wanted her,” he said, ^^then 
I’m bound to tell you, you went about getting 
her a cursedly bad way.” 

^^So! Perhaps you could have shown me 
a better! Perhaps you found it out — for your- 
self,” Deering snarled. Vallery’s hand 
clinched, but he dropped it behind him and 
stepped back, saying, coldly: 

Mrs. Barber is my friend, and will be 
one day the friend of my wife and my daugh- 
ter, all I can say, Mr. Deering, is — I hope you 
will take your business from this office just 
as soon as you can conveniently find another 
attorney.” 

“The devil you do!” Deering snarled, more 
angrily than before. “You may keep on hop- 
ing — I shall employ you, sir, just as long as 
it pleases me. Remember, you are under con- 
tract to me, for certain services. Some part 
of them relate to this matter we are discuss- 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


241 


ing. You will please go on with that — and 
do as I bid you.’’ 

^^Not unless you apologize instantly,” Val- 
lery said, folding his arms. Deering breathed 
heavily a minute, then burst out huskily: ^‘You 
know I never do that, Vallery — but come! let 
bygones be bygones. I have got the devil’s 
own temper — and the devil’s own luck to 
match, it seems just about now. You — you do 
not know what it means to count on a thing — 
to watch it coming closer, closer, through 
years, with each day as long as two — and 
then, all at once, to have it whisked away from 
you. It’s upsetting. You will admit that — ^ 
upsetting even to me — and I usually keep on 
an even keel.” 

, Vallery looked at him through a silent min- 
ute, then said, slowly: 

^^Deering, how came you to do this? It — 
your pursuit of that woman, I mean — is the 
only really mean thing I have ever known you 
to do. In the main, you are as square as a die. 
If you had been as square with Selene Barber 
as you commonly are with all the world you 
might have won her — in spite of law and 
gospel.” 

Deering laughed disdainfully. ‘^Then we 
will suppose my decency was offered up a 
burnt sacrifice for her safety,” he said. ^‘I 
ought to say damn her — but somehow I can- 
not. Tell me about her — of course, you have 
seen her since all this has been happening. 


242 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Is she well? Is she happy? Has the picture 
gone to her head?’’ 

^^Not the least bit,” Vallery said. ^^You will 
find her the same — yet not the same. She 
seems somehow smaller and younger, and less 
sure of herself than ever. In fact, she ap- 
pears to be growing so unsophisticated I have 
suggested that if she paints another success- 
ful picture she shall have herself a guardian 
appointed.” 

^^Hasn’t she chosen him already? What 
about the telegram?” Deering said, waving 
the paper up and down. Vallery laughed a 
little. 

know nothing about her sending any tele- 
gram,” he said. ^^I sent one — O, yes! it con- 
cerned her — remotely. But whether it will 
ever concern her more nearly — why! you will 
have to ask her. She is the only person on 
earth who can say.” 

Deering sat down heavily, his face livid. 
^^I’ve been afraid of that from the first,” he 
said. ^Wou had as well speak the truth — 
there is another man. But do not tell me it 
is the first one — the one who held himself too 
high for her. I had rather kill her, kill him, 
than see her belong to a man like him.” 

^^All I know is — she has never loved this 
man — I doubt, and so does he, if she ever will,” 
Vallery said. Deering drew a deep breath. 
^Tll give her half a million, and never come 
near her, if only she will send him about his 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


243 


business/’ he said. not think I am crazy, 
nor whining, Vallery, — but the fact is, I’m not 
over-long for this world. You know how my 
candle has been burned — at both ends and 
sometimes in the middle. It’s beginning to 
flicker^ — I should not mind its going out if I 
could know before it does go out the woman 
who was not for me was also not for any other 
man.” 

As he hurried away, reeling a little in his 
gait, Yallery looked after him, and said, half 
aloud: ^^On my soul, I’m sorry for him — little 
as I know he deserves it.” 

About that minute Selene sat high above 
the roofs, with folded hands, in a kind of happy 
daze. She knew one thing alone clearly — she 
was free, she belonged to herself. There could 
be no more doubt, no more heart-breaking 
hope. She sat in the sunshine of certainty. 
Henceforth it rested solely with herself to say 
what her life should be. 

Brentane tapped at her door, but came in 
before she bade him enter. ^^I know you are 
tired of hearing people tell you how great you 
are,” he said. have come for something 
else. Am I welcome?” 

^^Very welcome!” Selene said, smiling and 
giving him her hand, ^^although I think I know 
you have come to say I am not a great person 
at all.” 

^^You are a great woman,” Brentane said, 
eyeing her narrowly. ^^But a great artist — 


244 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


that is another thing. Honestly now, do you 
believe, in the depths of your own heart, you 
can ever paint another Vision?” 

Selene shook her head. am glad to say 
no,” she said, ^^because — well! because I hope 
never again to live through — the things which 
have made the Vision what it is.” 

‘^So! You gauge yourself! That is much! 
Very much for a woman!” Brentane said. 
^^Now, to get down to actualities — I have come 
to offer you something. What you say makes 
the offer easier — it is meant wholly in kind- 
ness, yet I did not quite know how you would 
take it in the first flush of success. I want 
you to keep on working for me — not in the old 
way! O, no! — under wholly new conditions. 
Let me send you abroad, to see and talk with 
the colorists there. It will broaden you, and 
make richer that which is best in your tem- 
perament now. You will never wholly master 
all the mechanical mysteries of pattern mak- 
ing< — all the same, you can direct deft-fingered 
people how to make patterns such as no other 
mind can conceive. I have talked with one or 
two others, who, like myself, aspire to lead, 
and, in so aspiring, aim to help in teaching 
the world the utility of beauty. Give us your 
time — or even half of it. We will pay you 
well for it. You can travel — indeed, you must 
travel, to talk things over with manufacturers 
and color makers and dyers. But at least half 
the year you can have a fixed home — and 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


245 


money enough to make it as beautiful as even 
you can desire. What do you say to me? Am 
I too late?’’ 

^^No! You are too early,” Selene said, smil- 
ing. have not yet found out whether or 
not I ever shall want to do another stroke of 
wQrk.” 

^^At least, you will think of it?” Brentane 
persisted. Selene smiled brightly. ^^The very 
first thing — when I begin to think,” she said. 
^^Now I can only feel. Part of the feeling is — 
I am grateful, so very grateful — to you. With- 
out you I — ” 

She stopped, her lips slowly whitening. 
Brentane got up. ^^Then it was as lucky for 
you as for me — our joining forces?” he asked. 
Selene answered only with a silent inclination 
of the head. It had all come back, in a crush- 
ing flood, the despair, the misery of those old 
days, and so shaken her she dared not trust 
her voice in speech. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


After Brentane left her a sudden fancy 
seized her. She would muffle herself well and 
slip away to the Fine Arts building. She had 
not been inside it since the newspapers set up 
their hue and cry over her. It was a raw, 
bright day in early spring — the nipping wind 
would excuse any amount of swathings she 
might choose by way of disguise. She had not 
meant to leave her apartments before night- 
fall — but, somehow, Brentane’s visit had made 
her restless. Things were in the air she felt — 
and it was better to meet them half way than 
to sit w’^aiting and wondering as to what would 
happen next. 

Perhaps Vallery might be in the building. 
There could be no one else whom she cared 
very much to see. Vallery had let her know, 
soon after the telegram went, that Bolton was 
away — nobody knew certainly where — so it 
was unlikely he would reach the city for a 
week to come. She had let the message go 
out of a full heart — but even the gladness of 
triumph had not made her sure. She wanted 
to see Bolton again, to look into his eyes, to 
listen to his voice, to touch his strong, warm 
hand, and with all that fresh in memory, to 
ask herself: ^^Do you care? Can you give him 
the love he so well deserves?’’ 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


247 


She was too entirely his friend to think of 
giving him less. She knew he would give all 
himself, exacting nothing, but that she could 
never permit. Want and misery and terror 
had not compelled her^ — neither would she be 
compelled by love, and the offer of an honored 
name. She must be able to give as well as to 
receive, to feel that her love was crowned, no 
less than itself a crown, or she would walk 
alone all her days. Regard for Bolton would 
not admit of less. He was too fine, too noble, 
too high-souled, to be accepted for less than 
the highest love. He would suffer if she sent 
him away for always, but it would be a sharp 
and saving hurt to the pain he would feel in 
finding out his wife could give him only affec- 
tionate gratitude in place of love. 

Because of this scruple she was glad he had 
been delayed. Now, when he came, she could 
look at and listen to him simply for himself. 
Brentane’s offer had made her sure for the 
future. No sordid consideration of ways and 
means could by any chance tinge her consid- 
eration of him. If she married him, he could 
know it was for love, love only. Deering was 
out of the way now — it was only a question of 
days until she would be legally released from 
his claim. The gallery people had let her know 
there were already battering offers for the 
Vision. The offers were held under advise- 
ment, they added. Mrs. Barber had been wise 
not to set a price at first — and her friend and 


248 AS IT HAPPENED. 

adviser, Mr. Vallery, insisted that no definite 
bargain should be struck without first con- 
sulting him. 

Something of all this streamed formlessly 
through her mind as she skimmed the streets, 
choosing those that were least fashionable, 
hence most thronged, and the safest hiding 
grounds. She had put on a new gown, a rich 
pale purple cloth, with touches of sable at 
throat and wrists. There was a trig little 
capote to match. Selene had frankly admired 
her own image in the glass, and sighed a little 
over the necessity of spoiling the exquisite 
effect with a boa and veil, without form, if not 
void. In her simplicity she did not dream 
herself already a marked figure, or that her 
height and svelte lines would betray her, even 
though her face was invisible. 

She reached the galleries in mid-afternoon. 
They were unusually thronged. The crowd, 
ever swaying, ever surging, was always thick- 
est in front of the Vision. But the picture 
held less than half the gazing eyes when the 
whisper ran about: ^^There she is! Mrs. Bar- 
ber! Or is it Miss? That tall woman in pur- 
ple! She painted the big picture, you know. 
Look! IsnT she a picture herself?’^ 

Half absently Selene had loosened the big 
boa, and let it trail over her arm. Through 
her veil she caught the glances and marked 
the craning of necks, the crowding round about 
her, the gentle inward pressure, hemming her 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


249 


in like a beast at bay. She tried to ignore it — 
to slip through. The crowd was courteous but 
as immovable as a plastic mass well can be. 
Where one gave room for her, two crowded 
into the vacant space. At last one young 
woman, bolder than the rest, said, with a sort 
of merry shyness: Mrs. Barber! ArenT 

you happy enough to die? Seeing all these 
people wild about you, must tell you what a 
great thing you have done.’^ 

am glad other people seem to think so,’^ 
Selene said, smiling and blushing. As she 
spoke she pulled off the veil and let her eyes 
range unhampered. Next minute she went 
white, then as suddenly turned a rosy red. 
Earle Brewster stood not ten feet away, look- 
ing at her with his soul in his eyes. 

After just a liard breath she gave him a 
smiling nod. Noting its direction the crowd 
made way. Half a minute afterward he was 
holding her hand and saying: ^^Selene, will 
you ever forgive me, if I buy your Vision and 
put it over the altar in St. Ignatius?’^ 

think not. It deserves better things than 
Barcelona criticism,’’ Selene said, smiling at 
him. He shook his head. ^^Still perverse,” he 
said. ^^Do you not know Barcelona only pre- 
sumes to criticise where its criticism can 
hurt?” 

know — it shall not have my picture,” Se- 
lene said, drawing a little away from him. He 
smiled as he saw it, saying: ^Wou are but 


250 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


little older, I see, Selene. Will you ever reach 
years of discretion, I wonder! Your look is 
exactly that of a willful child, whose most 
precious possession is in danger. Do not think 
I was in earnest about St. Ignatius. I know 
better than you do how the Vision would be 
wasted there. But I would like to own it — 
for a very little while. I want to give it to 
some great gallery, where it may stand, an 
eloquent advocate of your claims to all the 
world.’^ 

^^Thank you! You are very kind,^^ Selene 
murmured. ‘^But that is something with 
which I have now nothing to do. You must 
see the gallery authorities — still, to be frank, 
I had a little rather you did not — ^yet.’^ 

^Wour will is law, in any such matter,’^ he 
said. ^^But, at least, give me a chance. I 
hardly think there is another prospective bid- 
der who will appraise your work higher.’’ 

^^It is not that! Please do not think so!” 
Selene said, eagerly. ^‘But there is — some- 
thing — something not settled. Oh! — ” she 
broke off, suddenly, her eyes losing their light. 

must leave you — there is some one — ^a man I 
must not miss.” 

Peering had entered and stood near the 
door. He leaned heavily upon a cane, and 
watched her for ten seconds before he stirred. 
Then he moved to meet her. She was going up 
to him, her whole frame tense. am glad 
you have come back, Mr. Deering,” she said, 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


251 


not offering him her hand. ^^You are just in 
time. Remember I wrote, ^play or pay.’ It 
makes me very happy to tell you — it is payJ’ 
have no doubt of that,” he said, the least, 
thickness striking through the low notes of 
his voice. ought to congratulate you. — but 
you know how hopelessly truthful I am. I do 
not rejoice with you — nor for you. I am too 
busy sorrowing with myself.” 

am sorry for you — sorry you would not 
be always as kind as you were — sometimes,” 
Selene said, very low. ^When mother died — 
I can never forget that — O! Mr. Deering, be- 
cause of that, let me forgive all you have made 
me suffer, and be once more my friend!” 

wish I could, Selene! It is — impossible,” 
Deering said, sighing deeply. ^^But now that 
you have escaped me, think of me as kindly 
as you can.” 

^^I shall forget all save your kindness — when 
I have no more need to remember,” Selene 
said, her voice tremulous and wistful. Deer- 
ing turned away his head. 

^^I am going to die soon,” he said. ^^I wish 
you would promise me something — a very lit- 
tle thing.” 

^YYhat is it?” Selene asked. Deering 
wheeled about and faced her, as he answered, 
looking full in her eyes: 

^^O! It is only to be sure I am dead before 
you marry the other fellow.” 


252 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


Selene turned from him sharply, her cheeks 
crimson. He followed her and caught her arm 
in a strong, tense clutch. ^^Why! There is 
Vallery! The man with him? Who is he?’’ he 
asked. Selene did not answer. A leaping joy 
made her silent. Sight of Bolton had set 
every doubt at rest. He had come — the king- 
dom was ready for him — her happy heart rose 
up and acclaimed him its chosen master. 

^‘The picture? What are they doing to it? 
Why, there is a placard, ^Sold,’ stuck in the 
corner of the frame now!” Deering said, im- 
patiently. ‘Th,e gentleman who lost you, Se- 
lene, has perhaps learned wisdom by experi- 
ence. I saw him with you as I came in — and 
was certain from your face that he was trying 
to get the Vision — which you did not want 
him to have.” 

know nothing of who has bought it,” Se- 
lene said, edging away. ^^But, be certain, you 
are safe — ” 

^‘Be quiet! Never name that matter again!” 
Deering said, imperatively, tightening his 
clutch of her arm, already painful. He seemed 
to stoop visibly — she felt him tremble a little 
and shrink away, but could not free herself. 
Earle Brewster started toward her, but Bol- 
ton was ahead of him. He caught both her 
hands, and shook loose Deering’s hold of her, 
before he said : ^Terhaps I ought to have come 
straight to you — but I was so very anxious to 


AS IT HAPPENED. 


253 


make sure of something else first! Can you 
not guess what that was?^^ 

course Selene said, smiling up at him, 
inexpressibly relieved to find him there, her 
rock and her shield. ^‘You wanted first of all 
to see my picture. As if I should ever resent 
being second to that?’’ 

^‘No! I wanted to buy your picture!” Bolton 
said. ‘What is more, I have done it — Vallery 
came with me' on purpose to have all straight. 
From and after this date all inquiries for it 
will be sent to a man from the wild West. Are 
you glad or sorry?” 

“I cannot say until you tell me why you 
bought it,” Selene said, pretending to think 
deeply. He looked down at her a second, with 
a warm, compelling gaze. Her lids lifted be- 
fore it, and let him see all that was in the 
depths of her soul. He smiled as he looked, 
drew her hand within his arm, and said, al- 
most too low for other hearing: 

“I will tell you, though as yet it is a secret. 
I am to be married soon — the picture will be 
one of my presents to my bride.” 

Deering caught the words and the look. 
He had read aright the by-play betwixt those 
two so strangely flung under his gaze. With 
a low, gurgling cry, he flung up his arms, and 
fell across Selene’s feet, breathless, pulseless, 
stone dead. 



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